Systems and methods for managing assets in a geographical location

ABSTRACT

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for managing or tracking assets in a geographical area. One method includes receiving one or more first messages from a plurality of assets on one or more first channels of a plurality of channels. The one or more first messages may indicate live geographical locations of the plurality of assets located in a geographical area. The method also includes displaying, via a graphical user interface, the live geographical locations of the plurality of assets on a map of the geographical area. The method further includes receiving on a second channel a message indicating a request from a first user device to travel to a destination. The method further includes determining one or more travel routes to the destination. The one or more travel routes may use different assets to transport the first user device to the destination. The method further includes publishing on a third channel one or more second messages indicating the one or more travel routes.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 62/444,062, filed on Jan. 9, 2017, and claims thebenefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/446,104, filed onJan. 13, 2017. The disclosures of the above-referenced applications arehereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.

BACKGROUND

This specification relates to a data communication system and, inparticular, systems and methods for managing or tracking assets in ageographical area.

The publish-subscribe (or “PubSub”) pattern is a data communicationmessaging arrangement implemented by software systems where so-calledpublishers publish messages to topics and so-called subscribers receivethe messages pertaining to particular topics to which they aresubscribed. There can be one or more publishers per topic and publishersgenerally have no knowledge of what subscribers, if any, will receivethe published messages. Because publishers may publish large volumes ofmessages, and subscribers may subscribe to many topics (or “channels”)the overall volume of messages directed to a particular channel and/orsubscriber may be difficult to manage.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A illustrates an example system that supports the PubSubcommunication pattern.

FIG. 1B illustrates functional layers of software on an example clientdevice.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of an example messaging system.

FIG. 3A is a data flow diagram of an example method for writing data toa streamlet.

FIG. 3B is a data flow diagram of an example method for reading datafrom a streamlet.

FIG. 4A is a data flow diagram of an example method for publishingmessages to a channel of a messaging system.

FIG. 4B is a data flow diagram of an example method for subscribing to achannel of a messaging system.

FIG. 4C is an example data structure for storing messages of a channelof a messaging system.

FIG. 5A is a data flow diagram of an example method for publishing andreplicating messages of a messaging system.

FIG. 5B is a data flow diagram of an example method for retrievingstored messages in a messaging system.

FIGS. 5C and 5D are data flow diagrams of example methods for repairinga chain of copies of data in a messaging system.

FIG. 6 is an example data flow diagram for the application of filteringcriteria in a messaging system.

FIGS. 7A-7D are illustrations of how messages may be processed usingquery instructions that include a period-based parameter.

FIG. 8 is a diagram of an example system architecture that may be usedto manage and track assets that may be associated with an organizationalentity.

FIG. 9 is a diagram of a routing component that may predict or estimatearrival times of an asset, such as a transportation asset.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of an example method for predicting or estimatingan arrival time for an asset at a geographical location.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example graphical user interface(GUI) that may be presented by an asset component.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of an example method for operating an assetcomponent.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI that may be presentedby a client component.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI that may be presentedby a client component.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart of an example method for operating a clientcomponent.

FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI that may be presentedby a client component or an asset component.

FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI that may be presentedby an asset management component.

FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI that may be presentedby an asset management component.

FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI that may be presentedby an asset management component.

FIG. 20 is a flowchart of an example method for operating an assetmanagement component.

FIG. 21 is a flowchart of an example method for processing or analyzingvideo data.

FIG. 22 is a diagram illustrating example authentication procedures foran asset management system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Elements of examples or embodiments described with respect to a givenaspect of the invention can be used in various embodiments of anotheraspect of the invention. For example, it is contemplated that featuresof dependent claims depending from one independent claim can be used inapparatus, systems, and/or methods of any of the other independentclaims.

The details of one or more embodiments of the subject matter describedin this specification are set forth in the accompanying drawings and thedescription below. Other features, aspects, and advantages of thesubject matter will become apparent from the description, the drawings,and the claims.

A system architecture for tracking and managing assets may include amessaging system. The messaging system may support the PubSubcommunication pattern and may allow publishers and subscribers topublish and receive live messages. Operators of assets, users of assets,and administrators, supervisors, managers, inspectors, or other likeusers of organizational entities that may be associated with the assetsmay be publishers and subscribers of the messaging system. Assets oroperators of the assets, such as bus drivers, a parking lot attendant,etc., may publish messages to indicate the live geographical locations,conditions, utilization, performance metrics, etc., of the assets.Administrators, supervisors, managers, inspectors, or other like usersof the organizational entity of the organizational entity may view themessages and may be able to view the live geographical locations of theassets as the assets travel through a geographical area. Administrators,supervisors, managers, inspectors, or other like users of theorganizational entity of the organizational entity may also be able toview live performance metrics of the assets and may be able to manage orcontrol the assets.

Users of the assets, such as passengers on a bus, drivers who use aparking lot, etc., may also be able to track the live geographicallocations of the assets and view live performance metrics of the assets.Users may request assets to transport the users to differentgeographical locations. The system architecture may identify differenttravel routes that may use different assets (e.g., differenttransportation assets) and may allow the user to select one of thedifferent travel routes.

The implementations, embodiments, and examples described herein mayallow users to more easily and more efficiently select assets totransport the user to a particular geographical location (e.g., to adestination). For example, the system architecture may inform the userof the timeliness of the assets used on the different travel routes.This may allow the user to select the travel route where the user ismost likely to arrive at the destination on time. The systemarchitecture may also inform the user about the prices of the differenttravel routes, which may allow the user to select the mostcost-effective travel route.

FIG. 1A illustrates an example system 100 that supports the PubSubcommunication pattern. Publisher clients (e.g., Publisher 1) can publishmessages to named channels (e.g., “Channel 1”) by way of the system 100.A message can comprise any type of information including one or more ofthe following: text, image content, sound content, multimedia content,video content, binary data, and so on. Other types of message data arepossible. Subscriber clients (e.g., Subscriber 2) can subscribe to anamed channel using the system 100 and start receiving messages whichoccur after the subscription request or from a given position (e.g., amessage number or time offset). A client can be both a publisher and asubscriber.

Depending on the configuration, a PubSub system can be categorized asfollows:

-   -   One to One (1:1). In this configuration there is one publisher        and one subscriber per channel. A typical use case is private        messaging.    -   One to Many (1:N). In this configuration there is one publisher        and multiple subscribers per channel. Typical use cases are        broadcasting messages (e.g., stock prices).    -   Many to Many (M:N). In this configuration there are many        publishers publishing to a single channel. The messages are then        delivered to multiple subscribers. Typical use cases are map        applications.

There is no separate operation needed to create a named channel. Achannel is created implicitly when the channel is subscribed to or whena message is published to the channel. In some implementations, channelnames can be qualified by a name space. A name space comprises one ormore channel names. Different name spaces can have the same channelnames without causing ambiguity. The name space name can be a prefix ofa channel name where the name space and channel name are separated by adot or other suitable separator. In some implementations, name spacescan be used when specifying channel authorization settings. Forinstance, the messaging system 100 may have app1.foo andapp1.system.notifications channels where “app1” is the name of the namespace. The system can allow clients to subscribe and publish to theapp1.foo channel. However, clients can only subscribe to, but notpublish to the app1.system.notifications channel.

FIG. 1B illustrates functional layers of software on an example clientdevice. A client device (e.g., client 102) is a data processingapparatus such as, for example, a personal computer, a laptop computer,a tablet computer, a smart phone, a smart watch, or a server computer.Other types of client devices are possible. The application layer 104comprises the end-user application(s) that will integrate with thePubSub system 100. The messaging layer 106 is a programmatic interfacefor the application layer 104 to utilize services of the system 100 suchas channel subscription, message publication, message retrieval, userauthentication, and user authorization. In some implementations, themessages passed to and from the messaging layer 106 are encoded asJavaScript Object Notation (JSON) objects. Other message encodingschemes are possible.

The operating system 108 layer comprises the operating system softwareon the client 102. In various implementations, messages can be sent andreceived to/from the system 100 using persistent or non-persistentconnections. Persistent connections can be created using, for example,network sockets. A transport protocol such as TCP/IP layer 112implements the Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocolcommunication with the system 100 that can be used by the messaginglayer 106 to send messages over connections to the system 100. Othercommunication protocols are possible including, for example, UserDatagram Protocol (UDP). In further implementations, an optionalTransport Layer Security (TLS) layer 110 can be employed to ensure theconfidentiality of the messages.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of an example messaging system 100. The system 100provides functionality for implementing PubSub communication patterns.The system comprises software components and storage that can bedeployed at one or more data centers 122 in one or more geographiclocations, for example. The system comprises MX nodes (e.g., MX nodes ormultiplexer nodes 202, 204 and 206), Q nodes (e.g., Q nodes or queuenodes 208, 210 and 212), one or more configuration manager nodes (e.g.,configuration manager 214), and optionally one or more C nodes (e.g., Cnodes or cache nodes 220 and 222). Each node can execute in a virtualmachine or on a physical machine (e.g., a data processing apparatus).Each MX node can serve as a termination point for one or more publisherand/or subscriber connections through the external network 216. Theinternal communication among MX nodes, Q nodes, C nodes, and theconfiguration manager can be conducted over an internal network 218, forexample. By way of illustration, MX node 204 can be the terminus of asubscriber connection from client 102. Each Q node buffers channel datafor consumption by the MX nodes. An ordered sequence of messagespublished to a channel is a logical channel stream. For example, ifthree clients publish messages to a given channel, the combined messagespublished by the clients comprise a channel stream. Messages can beordered in a channel stream, for example, by time of publication by theclient, by time of receipt by an MX node, or by time of receipt by a Qnode. Other ways for ordering messages in a channel stream are possible.In the case where more than one message would be assigned to the sameposition in the order, one of the messages can be chosen (e.g.,randomly) to have a later sequence in the order. Each configurationmanager node is responsible for managing Q node load, for example, byassigning channels to Q nodes and/or splitting channel streams intoso-called streamlets. Streamlets are discussed further below. Theoptional C nodes provide caching and load removal from the Q nodes.

In the example messaging system 100, one or more client devices(publishers and/or subscribers) establish respective persistentconnections (e.g., TCP connections) to an MX node (e.g., MX node 204).The MX node serves as a termination point for these connections. Forinstance, external messages (e.g., between respective client devices andthe MX node) carried by these connections can be encoded based on anexternal protocol (e.g., JSON). The MX node terminates the externalprotocol and translates the external messages to internal communication,and vice versa. The MX nodes publish and subscribe to streamlets onbehalf of clients. In this way, an MX node can multiplex and mergerequests of client devices subscribing for or publishing to the samechannel, thus representing multiple client devices as one, instead ofone by one.

In the example messaging system 100, a Q node (e.g., Q node 208) canstore one or more streamlets of one or more channel streams. A streamletis a data buffer for a portion of a channel stream. A streamlet willclose to writing when its storage is full. A streamlet will close toreading and writing and be de-allocated when its time-to-live (TTL) hasexpired. By way of illustration, a streamlet can have a maximum size of1 MB and a TTL of three minutes. Different channels can have streamletslimited by different sizes and/or by different TTLs. For instance,streamlets in one channel can exist for up to three minutes, whilestreamlets in another channel can exist for up to 10 minutes. In variousimplementations, a streamlet corresponds to a computing process runningon a Q node. The computing process can be terminated after thestreamlet's TTL has expired, thus freeing up computing resources (forthe streamlet) back to the Q node, for example.

When receiving a publish request from a client device, an MX node (e.g.,MX node 204) makes a request to a configuration manager (e.g.,configuration manager 214) to grant access to a streamlet to write themessage being published. Note, however, that if the MX node has alreadybeen granted write access to a streamlet for the channel (and thechannel has not been closed to writing), the MX node can write themessage to that streamlet without having to request a grant to accessthe streamlet. Once a message is written to a streamlet for a channel,the message can be read by MX nodes and provided to subscribers of thatchannel.

Similarly, when receiving a channel subscription request from a clientdevice, an MX node makes a request to a configuration manager to grantaccess to a streamlet for the channel from which messages are read. Ifthe MX node has already been granted read access to a streamlet for thechannel (and the channel's TTL has not been closed to reading), the MXnode can read messages from the streamlet without having to request agrant to access the streamlet. The read messages can then be forwardedto client devices that have subscribed to the channel. In variousimplementations, messages read from streamlets are cached by MX nodes sothat MX nodes can reduce the number of times needed to read from thestreamlets.

By way of illustration, an MX node can request a grant from theconfiguration manager that allows the MX node to store a block of datainto a streamlet on a particular Q node that stores streamlets of theparticular channel. Example streamlet grant request and grant datastructures are as follows:

StreamletGrantRequest = {   “channel”: string( )   “mode”: “read” |“write”   “position”: 0 } StreamletGrantResponse = {   “streamlet-id”:“abcdef82734987”,   “limit-size”: 2000000, # 2 megabytes max  “limit-msgs”: 5000, # 5 thousand messages max   “limit-life”: 4000, #the grant is valid for 4 seconds   “q-node”: string( )   “position”: 0 }

The StreamletGrantRequest data structure stores the name of the streamchannel and a mode indicating whether the MX node intends on readingfrom or writing to the streamlet. The MX node sends theStreamletGrantRequest to a configuration manager node. The configurationmanager node, in response, sends the MX node a StreamletGrantResponsedata structure. The StreamletGrantResponse contains an identifier of thestreamlet (streamlet-id), the maximum size of the streamlet(limit-size), the maximum number of messages that the streamlet canstore (limit-msgs), the TTL (limit-life), and an identifier of a Q node(q-node) on which the streamlet resides. The StreamletGrantRequest andStreamletGrantResponse can also have a position field that points to aposition in a streamlet (or a position in a channel) for reading fromthe streamlet.

A grant becomes invalid once the streamlet has closed. For example, astreamlet is closed to reading and writing once the streamlet's TTL hasexpired and a streamlet is closed to writing when the streamlet'sstorage is full. When a grant becomes invalid, the MX node can request anew grant from the configuration manager to read from or write to astreamlet. The new grant will reference a different streamlet and willrefer to the same or a different Q node depending on where the newstreamlet resides.

FIG. 3A is a data flow diagram of an example method for writing data toa streamlet in various embodiments. In FIG. 3A, when an MX node (e.g.,MX node 202) request to write to a streamlet is granted by aconfiguration manager (e.g., configuration manager 214), as describedbefore, the MX node establishes a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)connection with the Q node (e.g., Q node 208) identified in the grantresponse received from the configuration manager (302). A streamlet canbe written concurrently by multiple write grants (e.g., for messagespublished by multiple publisher clients). Other types of connectionprotocols between the MX node and the Q node are possible.

The MX node then sends a prepare-publish message with an identifier of astreamlet that the MX node wants to write to the Q node (304). Thestreamlet identifier and Q node identifier can be provided by theconfiguration manager in the write grant as described earlier. The Qnode hands over the message to a handler process 301 (e.g., a computingprocess running on the Q node) for the identified streamlet (306). Thehandler process can send to the MX node an acknowledgement (308). Afterreceiving the acknowledgement, the MX node starts writing (publishing)messages (e.g., 310, 312, 314, and 318) to the handler process, which inturn stores the received data in the identified streamlet. The handlerprocess can also send acknowledgements (316, 320) to the MX node for thereceived data. In some implementations, acknowledgements can bepiggy-backed or cumulative. For instance, the handler process can sendto the MX node an acknowledgement for every predetermined amount of datareceived (e.g., for every 100 messages received) or for everypredetermined time period (e.g., for every one millisecond). Otheracknowledgement scheduling algorithms, such as Nagle's algorithm, can beused.

If the streamlet can no longer accept published data (e.g., when thestreamlet is full), the handler process sends a Negative-Acknowledgement(NAK) message (330) indicating a problem, following by an EOF(end-of-file) message (332). In this way, the handler process closes theassociation with the MX node for the publish grant. The MX node can thenrequest a write grant for another streamlet from a configuration managerif the MX node has additional messages to store.

FIG. 3B is a data flow diagram of an example method for reading datafrom a streamlet in various embodiments. In FIG. 3B, an MX node (e.g.,MX node 204) sends to a configuration manager (e.g., configurationmanager 214) a request for reading a particular channel starting from aparticular message or time offset in the channel. The configurationmanager returns to the MX node a read grant including an identifier of astreamlet containing the particular message, a position in the streamletcorresponding to the particular message, and an identifier of a Q node(e.g., Q node 208) containing the particular streamlet. The MX node thenestablishes a TCP connection with the Q node (352). Other types ofconnection protocols between the MX node and the Q node are possible.

The MX node then sends to the Q node a subscribe message (354) with theidentifier of the streamlet (in the Q node) and the position in thestreamlet from which the MX node wants to read (356). The Q node handsover the subscribe message to a handler process 351 for the streamlet(356). The handler process can send to the MX node an acknowledgement(358). The handler process then sends messages (360, 364, 366), startingat the position in the streamlet, to the MX node. In someimplementations, the handler process can send all of the messages in thestreamlet to the MX node. After sending the last message in a particularstreamlet, the handler process can send a notification of the lastmessage to the MX node. The MX node can send to the configurationmanager another request for another streamlet containing a next messagein the particular channel.

If the particular streamlet is closed (e.g., after its TTL has expired),the handler process can send an unsubscribe message (390), followed byan EOF message (392), to close the association with the MX node for theread grant. The MX node can close the association with the handlerprocess when the MX node moves to another streamlet for messages in theparticular channel (e.g., as instructed by the configuration manager).The MX node can also close the association with the handler process ifthe MX node receives an unsubscribe message from a corresponding clientdevice.

In various implementations, a streamlet can be written into and readfrom at the same time instance. For example, there can be a valid readgrant and a valid write grant at the same time instance. In variousimplementations, a streamlet can be read concurrently by multiple readgrants (e.g., for channels subscribed to by multiple publisher clients).The handler process of the streamlet can order messages from concurrentwrite grants based on, for example, time-of-arrival, and store themessages based on the order. In this way, messages published to achannel from multiple publisher clients can be serialized and stored ina streamlet of the channel.

In the messaging system 100, one or more C nodes (e.g., C node 220) canoffload data transfers from one or more Q nodes. For instance, if thereare many MX nodes requesting streamlets from Q nodes for a particularchannel, the streamlets can be offloaded and cached in one or more Cnodes. The MX nodes (e.g., as instructed by read grants from aconfiguration manager) can read the streamlets from the C nodes instead.

As described above, messages for a channel in the messaging system 100are ordered in a channel stream. A configuration manager (e.g.,configuration manager 214) splits the channel stream into fixed-sizedstreamlets that each reside on a respective Q node. In this way, storinga channel stream can be shared among many Q nodes; each Q node stores aportion (one or more streamlets) of the channel stream. Moreparticularly, a streamlet can be stored in, for example, registersand/or dynamic memory elements associated with a computing process on aQ node, thus avoiding the need to access persistent, slower storagedevices such as hard disks. This results in faster message access. Theconfiguration manager can also balance load among Q nodes in themessaging system 100 by monitoring respective workloads of the Q nodesand allocating streamlets in a way that avoids overloading any one Qnode.

In various implementations, a configuration manager maintains a listidentifying each active streamlet, the respective Q node on which thestreamlet resides, an identification of the position of the firstmessage in the streamlet, and whether the streamlet is closed forwriting. In some implementations, Q nodes notify the configurationmanager and/or any MX nodes that are publishing to a streamlet that thestreamlet is closed due to being full or when the streamlet's TTL hasexpired. When a streamlet is closed, the streamlet remains on theconfiguration manager's list of active streamlets until the streamlet'sTTL has expired so that MX nodes can continue to retrieve messages fromthe streamlet.

When an MX node requests a write grant for a given channel and there isnot a streamlet for the channel that can be written to, theconfiguration manager allocates a new streamlet on one of the Q nodesand returns the identity of the streamlet and the Q node in theStreamletGrantResponse. Otherwise, the configuration manager returns theidentity of the currently open for writing streamlet and corresponding Qnode in the StreamletGrantResponse. MX nodes can publish messages to thestreamlet until the streamlet is full or the streamlet's TTL hasexpired, after which a new streamlet can be allocated by theconfiguration manager.

When an MX node requests a read grant for a given channel and there isnot a streamlet for the channel that can be read from, the configurationmanager allocates a new streamlet on one of the Q nodes and returns theidentity of the streamlet and the Q node in the StreamletGrantResponse.Otherwise, the configuration manager returns the identity of thestreamlet and Q node that contains the position from which the MX nodewishes to read. The Q node can then begin sending messages to the MXnode from the streamlet beginning at the specified position until thereare no more messages in the streamlet to send. When a new message ispublished to a streamlet, MX nodes that have subscribed to thatstreamlet will receive the new message. If a streamlet's TTL hasexpired, the handler process 351 can send an EOF message (392) to any MXnodes that are subscribed to the streamlet.

In some implementations, the messaging system 100 can include multipleconfiguration managers (e.g., configuration manager 214 plus one or moreother configuration managers). Multiple configuration managers canprovide resiliency and prevent single point of failure. For instance,one configuration manager can replicate lists of streamlets and currentgrants it maintains to another “slave” configuration manager. As anotherexample, multiple configuration managers can coordinate operationsbetween them using distributed consensus protocols, such as, forexample, Paxos or Raft protocols.

FIG. 4A is a data flow diagram of an example method for publishingmessages to a channel of a messaging system. In FIG. 4A, publishers(e.g., publisher clients 402, 404, 406) publish messages to themessaging system 100 described earlier in reference to FIG. 2. Forinstance, publishers 402 respectively establish connections 411 and sendpublish requests to the MX node 202. Publishers 404 respectivelyestablish connections 413 and send publish requests to the MX node 206.Publishers 406 respectively establish connections 415 and send publishrequests to the MX node 204. Here, the MX nodes can communicate (417)with a configuration manager (e.g., configuration manager 214) and oneor more Q nodes (e.g., Q nodes 212 and 208) in the messaging system 100via the internal network 218.

By way of illustration, each publish request (e.g., in JSON key/valuepairs) from a publisher to an MX node includes a channel name and amessage. The MX node (e.g., MX node 202) can assign the message in thepublish request to a distinct channel in the messaging system 100 basedon the channel name (e.g., “foo”) of the publish request. The MX nodecan confirm the assigned channel with the configuration manager 214. Ifthe channel (specified in the subscribe request) does not yet exist inthe messaging system 100, the configuration manager can create andmaintain a new channel in the messaging system 100. For instance, theconfiguration manager can maintain a new channel by maintaining a listidentifying each active streamlet of the channel's stream, therespective Q node on which the streamlet resides, and identification ofthe positions of the first and last messages in the streamlet asdescribed earlier.

For messages of a particular channel, the MX node can store the messagesin one or more buffers or streamlets in the messaging system 100. Forinstance, the MX node 202 receives from the publishers 402 requests topublish messages M11, M12, M13, and M14 to a channel foo. The MX node206 receives from the publishers 404 requests to publish messages M78and M79 to the channel foo. The MX node 204 receives from the publishers406 requests to publish messages M26, M27, M28, M29, M30, and M31 to thechannel foo.

The MX nodes can identify one or more streamlets for storing messagesfor the channel foo. As described earlier, each MX node can request awrite grant from the configuration manager 214 that allows the MX nodeto store the messages in a streamlet of the channel foo. For instance,the MX node 202 receives a grant from the configuration manager 214 towrite messages M11, M12, M13, and M14 to a streamlet 4101 on the Q node212. The MX node 206 receives a grant from the configuration manager 214to write messages M78 and M79 to the streamlet 4101. Here, the streamlet4101 is the last one (at the moment) of a sequence of streamlets of thechannel stream 430 storing messages of the channel foo. The streamlet4101 has messages (421) of the channel foo that were previously storedin the streamlet 4101, but is still open, i.e., the streamlet 4101 stillhas space for storing more messages and the streamlet's TTL has notexpired.

The MX node 202 can arrange the messages for the channel foo based onthe respective time that each message was received by the MX node 202,e.g., M11, M13, M14, M12 (422), and store the received messages asarranged in the streamlet 4101. That is, the MX node 202 receives M11first, followed by M13, M14, and M12. Similarly, the MX node 206 canarrange the messages for the channel foo based on their respective timethat each message was received by the MX node 206, e.g., M78, M79 (423),and store the received messages as arranged in the streamlet 4101. Otherarrangements or ordering of the messages for the channel are possible.

The MX node 202 (or MX node 206) can store the received messages usingthe method for writing data to a streamlet described earlier inreference to FIG. 3A, for example. In various implementations, the MXnode 202 (or MX node 206) can buffer (e.g., in a local data buffer) thereceived messages for the channel foo and store the received messages ina streamlet for the channel foo (e.g., streamlet 4101) when the bufferedmessages reach a predetermined number or size (e.g., 100 messages) orwhen a predetermined time (e.g., 50 milliseconds) has elapsed. Forinstance, the MX node 202 can store in the streamlet 100 messages at atime or in every 50 milliseconds. Other appropriate algorithms andtechniques, such as Nagle's algorithm, can be used for managing thebuffered messages.

In various implementations, the Q node 212 (e.g., a handler process)stores the messages of the channel foo in the streamlet 4101 in theorder as arranged by the MX node 202 and MX node 206. The Q node 212stores the messages of the channel foo in the streamlet 4101 in theorder the Q node 212 receives the messages. For instance, assume thatthe Q node 212 receives messages M78 (from the MX node 206) first,followed by messages M11 and M13 (from the MX node 202), M79 (from theMX node 206), and M14 and M12 (from the MX node 202). The Q node 212stores in the streamlet 4101 the messages in the order as received,e.g., M78, M11, M13, M79, M14, and M12, immediately after the messages421 that are already stored in the streamlet 4101. In this way, messagespublished to the channel foo from multiple publishers (e.g., 402, 404)can be serialized in a particular order and stored in the streamlet 4101of the channel foo. Different subscribers that subscribe to the channelfoo will receive messages of the channel foo in the same particularorder, as will be described in more detail in reference to FIG. 4B.

In the example of FIG. 4A, at a time instance after the message M12 wasstored in the streamlet 4101, the MX node 204 requests a grant from theconfiguration manager 214 to write to the channel foo. The configurationmanager 214 provides the MX node 204 a grant to write messages to thestreamlet 4101, as the streamlet 4101 is still open for writing. The MXnode 204 arranges the messages for the channel foo based on therespective time that each message was received by the MX node 204, e.g.,M26, M27, M31, M29, M30, M28 (424), and stores the messages as arrangedfor the channel foo.

By way of illustration, assume that the message M26 is stored to thelast available position of the streamlet 4101. As the streamlet 4101 isnow full, the Q node 212 sends to the MX node 204 a NAK message,following by an EOF message, to close the association with the MX node204 for the write grant, as described earlier in reference to FIG. 3A.The MX node 204 then requests another write grant from the configurationmanager 214 for additional messages (e.g., M27, M31, and so on) for thechannel foo.

The configuration manager 214 can monitor available Q nodes in themessaging system 100 for their respective workloads (e.g., how manystreamlets are residing in each Q node). The configuration manager 214can allocate a streamlet for the write request from the MX node 204 suchthat overloading (e.g., too many streamlets or too many read or writegrants) can be avoided for any given Q node. For instance, theconfiguration manager 214 can identify a least loaded Q node in themessaging system 100 and allocate a new streamlet on the least loaded Qnode for write requests from the MX node 204. In the example of FIG. 4A,the configuration manager 214 allocates a new streamlet 4102 on the Qnode 208 and provides a write grant to the MX node 204 to write messagesfor the channel foo to the streamlet 4102. As shown in FIG. 4A, the Qnode stores in the streamlet 4102 the messages from the MX node 204 inan order as arranged by the MX node 204: M27, M31, M29, M30, and M28(assuming that there is no other concurrent write grant for thestreamlet 4102 at the moment).

When the configuration manager 214 allocates a new streamlet (e.g.,streamlet 4102) for a request for a grant from an MX node (e.g., MX node204) to write to a channel (e.g., foo), the configuration manager 214assigns to the streamlet its TTL, which will expire after TTLs of otherstreamlets that are already in the channel's stream. For instance, theconfiguration manager 214 can assign to each streamlet of the channelfoo's channel stream a TTL of 3 minutes when allocating the streamlet.That is, each streamlet will expire 3 minutes after it is allocated(created) by the configuration manager 214. Since a new streamlet isallocated after a previous streamlet is closed (e.g., filled entirely orexpired), in this way, the channel foo's channel stream comprisesstreamlets that each expires sequentially after its previous streamletexpires. For instance, as shown in an example channel stream 430 of thechannel foo in FIG. 4A, streamlet 4098 and streamlets before 4098 haveexpired (as indicated by the dotted-lined gray-out boxes). Messagesstored in these expired streamlets are not available for reading forsubscribers of the channel foo. Streamlets 4099, 4100, 4101, and 4102are still active (not expired). The streamlets 4099, 4100, and 4101 areclosed for writing, but still are available for reading. The streamlet4102 is available for reading and writing, at the moment when themessage M28 was stored in the streamlet 4102. At a later time, thestreamlet 4099 will expire, following by the streamlets 4100, 4101, andso on.

FIG. 4B is a data flow diagram of an example method for subscribing to achannel of a messaging system. In FIG. 4B, a subscriber 480 establishesa connection 462 with an MX node 461 of the messaging system 100.Subscriber 482 establishes a connection 463 with the MX node 461.Subscriber 485 establishes a connection 467 with an MX node 468 of themessaging system 100. Here, the MX nodes 461 and 468 can respectivelycommunicate (464) with the configuration manager 214 and one or more Qnodes in the messaging system 100 via the internal network 218.

A subscriber (e.g., subscriber 480) can subscribe to the channel foo ofthe messaging system 100 by establishing a connection (e.g., 462) andsending a request for subscribing to messages of the channel foo to anMX node (e.g., MX node 461). The request (e.g., in JSON key/value pairs)can include a channel name, such as, for example, “foo.” When receivingthe subscribe request, the MX node 461 can send to the configurationmanager 214 a request for a read grant for a streamlet in the channelfoo's channel stream.

By way of illustration, assume that at the current moment the channelfoo's channel stream 431 includes active streamlets 4102, 4103, and4104, as shown in FIG. 4B. The streamlets 4102 and 4103 each are full.The streamlet 4104 stores messages of the channel foo, including thelast message (at the current moment) stored at a position 47731.Streamlets 4101 and streamlets before 4101 are invalid, as theirrespective TTLs have expired. Note that the messages M78, M11, M13, M79,M14, M12, and M26 stored in the streamlet 4101, described earlier inreference to FIG. 4A, are no longer available for subscribers of thechannel foo, since the streamlet 4101 is no longer valid, as its TTL hasexpired. As described earlier, each streamlet in the channel foo'schannel stream has a TTL of 3 minutes, thus only messages (as stored instreamlets of the channel foo) that are published to the channel foo(i.e., stored into the channel's streamlets) no earlier than 3 minutesfrom the current time can be available for subscribers of the channelfoo.

The MX node 461 can request a read grant for all available messages inthe channel foo, for example, when the subscriber 480 is a newsubscriber to the channel foo. Based on the request, the configurationmanager 214 provides the MX node 461 a read grant to the streamlet 4102(on the Q node 208) that is the earliest streamlet in the activestreamlets of the channel foo (i.e., the first in the sequence of theactive streamlets). The MX node 461 can retrieve messages in thestreamlet 4102 from the Q node 208, using the method for reading datafrom a streamlet described earlier in reference to FIG. 3B, for example.Note that the messages retrieved from the streamlet 4102 maintain thesame order as stored in the streamlet 4102. However, other arrangementsor ordering of the messages in the streamlet are possible. In variousimplementations, when providing messages stored in the streamlet 4102 tothe MX node 461, the Q node 208 can buffer (e.g., in a local databuffer) the messages and send the messages to the MX node 461 when thebuffer messages reach a predetermined number or size (e.g., 200messages) or a predetermined time (e.g., 50 milliseconds) has elapsed.For instance, the Q node 208 can send the channel foo's messages (fromthe streamlet 4102) to the MX node 461 200 messages at a time or inevery 50 milliseconds. Other appropriate algorithms and techniques, suchas Nagle's algorithm, can be used for managing the buffered messages.

After receiving the last message in the streamlet 4102, the MX node 461can send an acknowledgement to the Q node 208, and send to theconfiguration manager 214 another request (e.g., for a read grant) forthe next streamlet in the channel stream of the channel foo. Based onthe request, the configuration manager 214 provides the MX node 461 aread grant to the streamlet 4103 (on Q node 472) that logically followsthe streamlet 4102 in the sequence of active streamlets of the channelfoo. The MX node 461 can retrieve messages stored in the streamlet 4103,e.g., using the method for reading data from a streamlet describedearlier in reference to FIG. 3B, until it retrieves the last messagestored in the streamlet 4103. The MX node 461 can send to theconfiguration manager 214 yet another request for a read grant formessages in the next streamlet 4104 (on Q node 474). After receiving theread grant, the MX node 461 retrieves messages of the channel foo storedin the streamlet 4104, until the last message at the position 47731.Similarly, the MX node 468 can retrieve messages from the streamlets4102, 4103, and 4104 (as shown with dotted arrows in FIG. 4B), andprovide the messages to the subscriber 485.

The MX node 461 can send the retrieved messages of the channel foo tothe subscriber 480 (via the connection 462) while receiving the messagesfrom the Q nodes 208, 472, or 474. In various implementations, the MXnode 461 can store the retrieved messages in a local buffer. In thisway, the retrieved messages can be provided to another subscriber (e.g.,subscriber 482) when the other subscriber subscribes to the channel fooand requests the channel's messages. The MX node 461 can remove messagesstored in the local buffer that each has a time of publication that hasexceeded a predetermined time period. For instance, the MX node 461 canremove messages (stored in the local buffer) with respective times ofpublication exceeding 3 minutes. In some implementations, thepredetermined time period for keeping messages in the local buffer on MXnode 461 can be the same as or similar to the time-to-live duration of astreamlet in the channel foo's channel stream, since at a given moment,messages retrieved from the channel's stream do not include those instreamlets having respective times-to-live that had already expired.

The messages retrieved from the channel stream 431 and sent to thesubscriber 480 (by the MX node 461) are arranged in the same order asthe messages were stored in the channel stream, although otherarrangements or ordering of the messages are possible. For instance,messages published to the channel foo are serialized and stored in thestreamlet 4102 in a particular order (e.g., M27, M31, M29, M30, and soon), then stored subsequently in the streamlet 4103 and the streamlet4104. The MX node retrieves messages from the channel stream 431 andprovides the retrieved messages to the subscriber 480 in the same orderas the messages are stored in the channel stream: M27, M31, M29, M30,and so on, followed by ordered messages in the streamlet 4103, andfollowed by ordered messages in the streamlet 4104.

Instead of retrieving all available messages in the channel stream 431,the MX node 461 can request a read grant for messages stored in thechannel stream 431 starting from a message at particular position, e.g.,position 47202. For instance, the position 47202 can correspond to anearlier time instance (e.g., 10 seconds before the current time) whenthe subscriber 480 was last subscribing to the channel foo (e.g., via aconnection to the MX node 461 or another MX node of the messaging system100). The MX node 461 can send to the configuration manager 214 arequest for a read grant for messages starting at the position 47202.Based on the request, the configuration manager 214 provides the MX node461 a read grant to the streamlet 4104 (on the Q node 474) and aposition on the streamlet 4104 that corresponds to the channel streamposition 47202. The MX node 461 can retrieve messages in the streamlet4104 starting from the provided position, and send the retrievedmessages to the subscriber 480.

As described above in reference to FIGS. 4A and 4B, messages publishedto the channel foo are serialized and stored in the channel's streamletsin a particular order. The configuration manager 214 maintains theordered sequence of streamlets as they are created throughout theirrespective times-to-live. Messages retrieved from the streamlets by anMX node (e.g., MX node 461, or MX node 468) and provided to a subscribercan be, in some implementations, in the same order as the messages arestored in the ordered sequence of streamlets. In this way, messages sentto different subscribers (e.g., subscriber 480, subscriber 482, orsubscriber 485) can be in the same order (as the messages are stored inthe streamlets), regardless which MX nodes the subscribers are connectedto.

In various implementations, a streamlet stores messages in a set ofblocks of messages. Each block stores a number of messages. Forinstance, a block can store two hundred kilobytes of messages (althoughother sizes of blocks of messages are possible). Each block has its owntime-to-live, which can be shorter than the time-to-live of thestreamlet holding the block. Once a block's TTL has expired, the blockcan be discarded from the streamlet holding the block, as described inmore detail below in reference to FIG. 4C.

FIG. 4C is an example data structure for storing messages of a channelof a messaging system. As described with the channel foo in reference toFIGS. 4A and 4B, assume that at the current moment the channel foo'schannel stream 432 includes active streamlets 4104 and 4105, as shown inFIG. 4C. Streamlet 4103 and streamlets before 4103 are invalid, as theirrespective TTLs have expired. The streamlet 4104 is already full for itscapacity (e.g., as determined by a corresponding write grant) and isclosed for additional message writes. The streamlet 4104 is stillavailable for message reads. The streamlet 4105 is open and is availablefor message writes and reads.

By way of illustration, the streamlet 4104 (e.g., a computing processrunning on the Q node 474 shown in FIG. 4B) currently holds two blocksof messages. Block 494 holds messages from channel positions 47301 to47850. Block 495 holds messages from channel positions 47851 to 48000.The streamlet 4105 (e.g., a computing process running on another Q nodein the messaging system 100) currently holds two blocks of messages.Block 496 holds messages from channel positions 48001 to 48200. Block497 holds messages starting from channel position 48201, and stillaccepts additional messages of the channel foo.

When the streamlet 4104 was created (e.g., by a write grant), a firstblock (sub-buffer) 492 was created to store messages, e.g., from channelpositions 47010 to 47100. Later on, after the block 492 had reached itscapacity, another block 493 was created to store messages, e.g., fromchannel positions 47111 to 47300. Blocks 494 and 495 were subsequentlycreated to store additional messages. Afterwards, the streamlet 4104 wasclosed for additional message writes, and the streamlet 4105 was createdwith additional blocks for storing additional messages of the channelfoo.

In this example, the respective TTL's of blocks 492 and 493 had expired.The messages stored in these two blocks (from channel positions 47010 to47300) are no longer available for reading by subscribers of the channelfoo. The streamlet 4104 can discard these two expired blocks, e.g., byde-allocating the memory space for the blocks 492 and 493. The blocks494 or 495 could become expired and be discarded by the streamlet 4104,before the streamlet 4104 itself becomes invalid. Alternatively,streamlet 4104 itself could become invalid before the blocks 494 or 495become expired. In this way, a streamlet can hold one or more blocks ofmessages, or contain no block of messages, depending on respective TTLsof the streamlet and blocks, for example.

A streamlet, or a computing process running on a Q node in the messagingsystem 100, can create a block for storing messages of a channel byallocating a certain size of memory space from the Q node. The streamletcan receive, from an MX node in the messaging system 100, one message ata time and store the received message in the block. Alternatively, theMX node can assemble (i.e., buffer) a group of messages and send thegroup of messages to the Q node. The streamlet can allocate a block ofmemory space (from the Q node) and store the group of messages in theblock. The MX node can also perform compression on the group ofmessages, e.g., by removing a common header from each message orperforming other suitable compression techniques.

As described above, a streamlet (a data buffer) residing on a Q nodestores messages of a channel in the messaging system 100. To preventfailure of the Q node (a single point failure) that can cause messagesbeing lost, the messaging system 100 can replicate messages on multipleQ nodes, as described in more detail below.

FIG. 5A is a data flow diagram of an example method 500 for publishingand replicating messages of the messaging system 100. As describedearlier in reference to FIG. 4A, the MX node 204 receives messages (ofthe channel foo) from the publishers 406. The configuration manager 214can instruct the MX Node 204 (e.g., with a write grant) to store themessages in the streamlet 4102 on the Q node 208. In FIG. 5A, instead ofstoring the messages on a single node (e.g., Q node 208), theconfiguration manager 214 allocates multiple Q nodes to store multiplecopies of the streamlet 4102 on these Q nodes.

By way of illustration, the configuration manager 214 allocates Q nodes208, 502, 504, and 506 in the messaging system 100 to store copies ofthe streamlet 4102. The configuration manager 214 instructs the MX node204 to transmit the messages for the channel foo (e.g., messages M27,M31, M29, M30, and M28) to the Q node 208 (512). A computing processrunning on the Q node 208 stores the messages in the first copy (copy#1) of the streamlet 4102. Instead of sending an acknowledgement messageto the MX node 204 after storing the messages, the Q node 208 forwardsthe messages to the Q node 502 (514). A computing process running on theQ node 502 stores the messages in another copy (copy #2) of thestreamlet 4102. Meanwhile, the Q node 502 forwards the messages to the Qnode 504 (516). A computing process running on the Q node 504 stores themessages in yet another copy (copy #3) of the streamlet 4102. The Q node504 also forwards the message to the Q node 506 (518). A computingprocess running on the Q node 506 stores the messages in yet anothercopy (copy #4) of the streamlet 4102. The Q node 506 can send anacknowledgement message to the MX node 204, indicating that all themessages (M27, M31, M29, M30, and M28) have been stored successfully instreamlet copies #1, #2, #3 and #4.

In some implementations, after successfully storing the last copy (copy#4), the Q node 506 can send an acknowledgement to its upstream Q node(504), which in turns sends an acknowledgement to its upstream Q node(502), and so on, until the acknowledgement is sent to the Q node 208storing the first copy (copy #1). The Q node 208 can send anacknowledgement message to the MX node 204, indicating that all messageshave been stored successfully in the streamlet 4102 (i.e., in the copies#1, #2, #3 and #4).

In this way, four copies of the streamlet 4102 (and each message in thestreamlet) are stored in four different Q nodes. Other numbers (e.g.,two, three, five, or other suitable number) of copies of a streamlet arealso possible. In the present illustration, the four copies form a chainof copies including a head copy in the copy #1 and a tail copy in thecopy #4. When a new message is published to the streamlet 4102, themessage is first stored in the head copy (copy #1) on the Q node 208.The message is then forwarded downstream to the next adjacent copy, thecopy #2 on the Q node 502 for storage, then to the copy #3 on the Q node504 for storage, until the message is stored in the tail copy the copy#4 on the Q node 506.

In addition to storing and forwarding by messages, the computingprocesses running on Q nodes that store copies of a streamlet can alsostore and forward messages by blocks of messages, as described earlierin reference to FIG. 4C. For instance, the computing process storing thecopy #1 of the streamlet 4102 on Q node 208 can allocate memory andstore a block of, for example, 200 kilobytes of messages (although othersizes of blocks of messages are possible), and forward the block ofmessages to the next adjacent copy (copy #2) of the chain for storage,and so on, until the block messages is stored in the tail copy (copy #4)on the Q node 506.

Messages of the streamlet 4102 can be retrieved and delivered to asubscriber of the channel foo from one of the copies of the streamlet4102. FIG. 5B is a data flow diagram of an example method 550 forretrieving stored messages in the messaging system 100. For instance,the subscriber 480 can send a request for subscribing to messages of thechannel to the MX node 461, as described earlier in reference to FIG.4B. The configuration manager 214 can provide to the MX node 461 a readgrant for one of the copies of the streamlet 4102. The MX node 461 canretrieve messages of the streamlet 4102 from one of the Q nodes storinga copy of the streamlet 4102, and provide the retrieved messages to thesubscriber 480. For instance, the MX node 461 can retrieve messages fromthe copy #4 (the tail copy) stored on the Q node 506 (522). As foranother example, the MX node 461 can retrieve messages from the copy #2stored on the Q node 502 (524). In this way, the multiple copies of astreamlet (e.g., copies #1, #2, #3, and #4 of the streamlet 4102)provide replication and redundancy against failure if only one copy ofthe streamlet were stored in the messaging system 100. In variousimplementations, the configuration manager 214 can balance workloadsamong the Q nodes storing copies of the streamlet 4102 by directing theMX node 461 (e.g., with a read grant) to a particular Q node that has,for example, less current read and write grants as compared to other Qnodes storing copies of the streamlet 4102.

A Q node storing a particular copy in a chain of copies of a streamletmay fail, e.g., a computing process on the Q node storing the particularcopy may freeze. Other failure modes of a Q node are possible. An MXnode can detect a failed node (e.g., from non-responsiveness of thefailed node) and report the failed node to a configuration manager inthe messaging system 100 (e.g., configuration manager 214). A peer Qnode can also detect a failed Q node and report the failed node to theconfiguration manager. For instance, an upstream Q node may detect afailed downstream Q node when the downstream Q node is non-responsive,e.g., fails to acknowledge a message storage request from the upstream Qnode as described earlier. It is noted that failure of a Q node storinga copy of a particular streamlet of a particular channel stream does nothave to be for publish or subscribe operations of the particularstreamlet or of the particular channel stream. Failure stemming fromoperations on another streamlet or another channel stream can also alerta configuration manager about failure of a Q node in the messagingsystem 100.

When a Q node storing a particular copy in a chain of copies of astreamlet fails, a configuration manager in the messaging system 100 canrepair the chain by removing the failed node, or by inserting a new nodefor a new copy into the chain, for example. FIGS. 5C and 5D are dataflow diagrams of example methods for repairing a chain of copies of astreamlet in the messaging system 100. In FIG. 5C, for instance, afterdetecting that the Q node 504 fails, the configuration manager 214 canrepair the chain of copies by redirecting messages intended to be storedin the copy #3 of the streamlet 4102 on the Q node 502 to the copy #4 ofthe streamlet 4102 on the Q node 506. In this example, a message (or ablock of messages) is first sent from the MX node 204 to the Q node 208for storage in the copy #1 of the streamlet 4102 (572). The message thenis forwarded to the Q node 502 for storage in the copy #2 of thestreamlet 4102 (574). The message is then forwarded to the Q node 506for storage in the copy #4 of the streamlet 4102 (576). The Q node 506can send an acknowledgement message to the configuration manager 214indicating that the message has been stored successfully.

Here, a failed node can also be the node storing the head copy or thetail copy of the chain of copies. For instance, if the Q node 208 fails,the configuration manager 214 can instruct the MX node 204 first to sendthe message to the Q node 502 for storage in the copy #2 of thestreamlet 4102. The message is then forwarded to the next adjacent copyin the chain for storage, until the message is stored in the tail copy.

If the Q node 506 fails, the configuration manager 214 can repair thechain of copies of the streamlet 4102 such that the copy #3 on the Qnode 504 becomes the tail copy of the chain. A message is first storedin the copy #1 on the Q node 208, then subsequently stored in the copy#2 on the Q node 502, and the copy #3 on the Q node 504. The Q node 504then can send an acknowledgement message to the configuration manager214 indicating that the message has been stored successfully.

In FIG. 5D, the configuration manager 214 replaces the failed node Qnode 504 by allocating a new Q node 508 to store a copy #5 of the chainof copies of the streamlet 4102. In this example, the configurationmanager 214 instructs the MX node 204 to send a message (from thepublishers 406) to the Q node 208 for storage in the copy #1 of thestreamlet 4102 (582). The message is then forwarded to the Q node 502for storage in the copy #2 of the streamlet 4102 (584). The message isthen forwarded to the Q node 508 for storage in the copy #5 of thestreamlet 4012 (586). The message is then forwarded to the Q node 506for storage in the copy #4 of the streamlet 4102 (588). The Q node 506can send an acknowledgement message to the configuration manager 214indicating that the message has been stored successfully.

FIG. 6 is a data flow diagram 600 illustrating the application ofselective filtering, searching, transforming, querying, aggregating andtransforming of messages in real time to manage the delivery of messagesinto and through each channel and on to individual subscribers. Usersoperating applications on client devices, such as, for example,smartphones, tablets, and other internet-connected devices, act assubscribers (e.g., subscriber 480 in FIG. 4B, subscriber 602 in FIG. 6).The applications may be, for example, consumers of the messages toprovide real-time information about news, transportation, sports,weather, or other subjects that rely on published messages attributed toone or more subjects and/or channels. Message publishers 604 can be anyinternet-connected service that provides, for example, status data,transactional data or other information that is made available to thesubscribers 602 on a subscription basis. In some versions, therelationship between publishers and channels is 1:1, that is there isone and only one publisher that provides messages into that particularchannel. In other instances, the relationship may be many-to-one (morethan one publisher provides messages into a channel), one-to-many (apublisher's messages are sent to more than one channel), or many-to-many(more than one publisher provides messages to more than one channel).Typically, when a subscriber subscribes to a channel, they receive allmessages and all message data published to the channel as soon as it ispublished. The result, however, is that many subscribers can receivemore data (or data that requires further processing) than is useful. Theadditional filtering or application of functions against the data placesundue processing requirements on the subscriber application and candelay presentation of the data in its preferred format.

A filter 606 can be created by providing suitable query instructions at,for example, the time the subscriber 602 subscribes to the channel 608.The filter 606 that is specified can be applied to all messagespublished to the channel 608 (e.g., one message at a time), and can beevaluated before the subscriber 602 receives the messages (e.g., seeblock 2 in FIG. 6). By allowing subscribers 602 to create queryinstructions a priori, that is upon subscribing to the channel 608 andbefore data is received into the channel 608, the burden of filteringand processing messages moves closer to the data source, and can bemanaged at the channel level. As a result, the messages are pre-filteredand/or pre-processed before they are forwarded to the subscriber 602.Again, the query instructions need not be based on any a prioriknowledge of the form or substance of the incoming messages. The queryinstructions can be used to pre-process data for applications such as,for example, real-time monitoring services (for transportation,healthcare, news, sports, weather, etc.) and dashboards (e.g.,industrial monitoring applications, financial markets, etc.) to filterdata, summarize data and/or detect anomalies. One or more filters 606can be applied to each channel 608.

The query instructions can implement real-time searches and queries,aggregate or summarize data, or transform data for use by a subscriberapplication. In some embodiments, including those implementing JSONformatted messages, the messages can be generated, parsed andinterpreted using the query instructions, and the lack of a pre-definedschema (unlike conventional RDBMS/SQL-based applications) means that thequery instructions can adapt to changing business needs without the needfor schema or application layer changes. This allows the queryinstructions to be applied selectively at the message level within achannel, thus filtering and/or aggregating messages within the channel.In some instances, the queries may be applied at the publisherlevel—meaning channels that receive messages from more than onepublisher may apply certain filters against messages from specificpublishers. The query instructions may be applied on a going-forwardbasis, that is on only newly arriving messages, and/or in some cases,the query instructions may be applied to historical messages alreadyresiding in the channel queue.

The query instructions can be applied at either or both of the ingressand egress side of the PubSub service. On the egress side, the queryinstructions act as a per-connection filter against the messagechannels, and allows each subscriber to manage their own set of uniquefilters. On the ingress side, the query instructions operate as acentralized, system-wide filter that is applied to all publishedmessages.

For purposes of illustration and not limitation, examples of queryinstructions that may be applied during message ingress include:

-   -   A message may be distributed to multiple channels or to a        different channel (e.g., based on geo-location in the message,        or based on a hash function of some value in the message).    -   A message may be dropped due to spam filtering or DoS rules        (e.g., limiting the number of messages a publisher can send in a        given time period).    -   An alert message may be sent to an admin channel on some event        arriving at any channel (e.g., cpu_temp>threshold).

For purposes of illustration and not limitation, examples of queryinstructions that may be applied during message egress include:

-   -   Channels that contain events from various sensors where the user        is only interested in a subset of the data sources.    -   Simple aggregations, where a system reports real time events,        such as cpu usage, sensor temperatures, etc., and we would like        to receive some form of aggregation over a short time period,        irrespective of the number of devices reporting or the reporting        frequency, e.g., average(cpu_load), max(temperature),        count(number_of_users), count(number_of_messages) group by        country.    -   Transforms, where a system reports real time events and metadata        is added to them from mostly static external tables, e.g.,        adding a city name based on IP address, converting an        advertisement ID to a marketing campaign ID or to a marketing        partner ID.    -   Adding default values to event streams where such values do not        exist on certain devices.    -   Advanced aggregations, where a system reports real time events,        and combines some mostly static external tables data into the        aggregation in real time, e.g., grouping advertisement clicks by        partners and counting number of events.    -   Counting number of user events, grouping by a/b test cell        allocation.

In some embodiments, the query instructions may be used to define anindex or other suitable temporary data structure, which may then beapplied against the messages as they are received into the channel toallow for the reuse of the data element(s) as searchable elements. Insuch cases, a query frequency may be maintained to describe the numberof times (general, or in a given period) that a particular data elementis referred to or how that element is used. If the frequency that thedata element is used in a query exceeds some threshold, the index may bestored for subsequent use on incoming messages, whereas in otherinstances in which the index is used only once (or infrequently) it maybe discarded. In some instances, the query instruction may be applied tomessages having arrived at the channel prior to the creation of theindex. Thus, the messages are not indexed according to the data elementsdescribed in the query instructions but processed using the queryinstructions regardless, whereas messages arriving after the creation ofthe index may be filtered and processed using the index. For queries orother subscriptions that span the time at which the index may have beencreated, the results of applying the query instructions to the messagesas they are received and processed with the index may be combined withresults of applying the query instructions to non-indexed messagesreceived prior to receipt of the query instructions.

For purposes of illustration and not limitation, one use case for such afiltering application is a mapping application that subscribes to publictransportation data feeds, such as the locations of all buses across acity. The published messages may include, for example, geographic datadescribing the location, status, bus agency, ID number, route number,and route name of the buses. Absent pre-defined query instructions, theclient application would receive individual messages for all buses.However, query instructions may be provided that filter out, forexample, inactive routes and buses and aggregate, for example, a countof buses by agency. The subscriber application receives the filtered busdata in real time and can create reports, charts and other user-definedpresentations of the data. When new data is published to the channel,the reports can be updated in real time based on a period parameter(described in more detail below).

The query instructions can be provided (e.g., at the time the subscribersubscribes to the channel) in any suitable format or syntax. Forexample, the following illustrates the structure of several fields of asample subscription request Protocol Data Unit (PDU) with the PDU keysspecific to adding a filter to a subscription request:

{   ″action″: ″subscribe″,   “body”: {     ″channel″: “ChannelName”    ″filter″: “QueryInstructions”     ″period″: [1-60, OPTIONAL]   } }

In the above subscription request PDU, the “channel” field can be avalue (e.g., string or other appropriate value or designation) for thename of the channel to which the subscriber wants to subscribe. The“filter” field can provide the query instructions or other suitablefilter commands, statements, or syntax that define the type ofkey/values in the channel message to return to the subscriber. The“period” parameter specifies the time period in, for example, seconds,to retain messages before returning them to the subscriber (e.g., aninteger value from 1 to 60, with a default of, for example, 1). The“period” parameter will be discussed in more detail below. It is notedthat a subscription request PDU can include any other suitable fields,parameters, or values.

One example of a query instruction is a “select” filter, which selectsthe most recent (or “top”) value for all (e.g., “select.*”) or selected(e.g., “select.name”) data elements. In the example below, the Filtercolumn shows the filter value sent in the query instructions as part ofa subscription as the filter field. The Message Data column lists theinput of the channel message data and the message data sent to theclient as output. In this example, the value for the “extra” key doesnot appear in the output, as the “select” filter can return only thefirst level of results and does not return any nested key values.

Filter Message Data SELECT * Input {“name”: “art”, “eye”: “blue”},{“name”: “art”, “age”: 11}, {“age”: 12, “height”: 190} Output {“name”:“art”, “age”: 12, “eye”: “blue”, “height”: 190} SELECT top.* Input{“top”: {“age”: 12, “eyes”: “blue”}}, {“top”: {“name”: “joy”, “height”:168}, “extra”: 1}, {“top”: {“name”: “art”}} Output {“name”: “art”,“age”: 12, “eye”: “blue”, “height”: 168}

For aggregative functions, all messages can be combined that satisfy thequery instructions included in the GROUP BY clause. The aggregatedvalues can then be published as a single message to the subscriber(s) atthe end of the aggregation period. The number of messages that areaggregated depends on, for example, the number of messages received inthe channel in the period value for the filter. For instance, if theperiod parameter is set to 1, and 100 messages are received in onesecond, all 100 messages are aggregated into a single message fortransmission to the subscriber(s). As an example, a query instruction asshown below includes a filter to aggregate position data for an object,grouping it by obj_id, with a period of 1:

SELECT*WHERE (<expression with aggregate function>) GROUP BY obj_id

In this example, all messages published in the previous second with thesame obj_id are grouped and sent as a batch to the subscriber(s).

In some embodiments, a MERGE(*) function can be used to change howaggregated message data is merged. The MERGE(*) function can return arecursive union of incoming messages over a period of time. The mergefunction may be used, for example, to track location data for an object,and the subscriber is interested in the most recent values for allkey/value pairs contained in a set of aggregated messages. The followingstatement shows an exemplary syntax for the MERGE(*) function:

SELECT [expr] [name,]MERGE(*)[.*] [AS name] [FROM expr]   [WHERE expr][HAVING expr] GROUP BY name

The following examples illustrate how the MERGE(*) function may beapplied within query instructions to various types of channel messages.In the following examples, the Filter column shows the filter valueincluded in the query instructions as part of a subscription request asthe FILTER field. The Message Data column lists the Input channelmessage data and the resulting message data sent to the subscriber asOutput. The filter returns the most recent values of the keys identifiedin the input messages, with the string MERGE identified as the columnname in the output message data. The first example below shows theMERGE(*) function in a filter with a wildcard, for the message data isreturned using the keys from the input as column names in the output.

Filter Message Data SELECT Input MERGE(*) {“name”: “art”, “age”: 10},{“name”: “art”, “age”: 11, “items”: [0]} Output {“MERGE”: {“name”:“art”, “age”: 11, “items”: [0]}}The next example illustrates the use of the MERGE(*) function in afilter using a wildcard and the “AS” statement with a value of MERGE.The output data includes MERGE as the column name.

Filter Message Data SELECT MERGE(*).* Input {  “name”: “art”,  “age”:12,  “items”: [0],  “skills”: {   “work”: [“robots”]  } }, {  “name”:“art”,  “age”: 13,  “items”: [“car”],  “skills”: {   “home”: [“cooking”] } } Output {  “name”: “art”,  “age”: 13,  “items”: [“car”],  “skills”:{   “work”: [“robots”],   “home”: [“cooking”]  } } SELECT MERGE(top.*)AS Input merge {“top”: { }, “garbage”: 0}, {“top”: {“name”: “art”,“eyes”: “blue”}}, {“top”: {“name”: “joy”, “height”: 170}} Output{“merge”: {“name”: “joy”, “eyes”: “blue”, “height”: 170}}

Generally, for aggregative functions and for filters that only include aSELECT(expr) statement, only the latest value for any JSON key in themessage data from the last message received can be stored and returned.Therefore, if the most recent message received that satisfies the filterstatement is missing a key value identified in a previously processedmessage, that value is not included in the aggregate, which could resultin data loss. However, filters that also include the MERGE(*) functioncan retain the most recent value for all keys that appear in messages toan unlimited JSON object depth. Accordingly, the most recent version ofall key values can be retained in the aggregate.

The MERGE(*) function can be used to ensure that associated values forall keys that appear in any message during the aggregation period alsoappear in the final aggregated message. For example, a channel may trackthe physical location of an object in three dimensions: x, y, and z.During an aggregation period of one second, two messages are publishedto the channel, one having only two parameters: OBJ{x:1, y:2, z:3} andOBJ{x:2, y:3}. In the second message, the z value did not change and wasnot included in the second message. Without the MERGE(*) function, theoutput result would be OBJ{x:2, y:3}. Because the z value was notpresent in the last message in the aggregation period, the z value wasnot included in the final aggregate. However, with the MERGE(*)function, the result is OBJ{x:2, y:3, z:3}.

The following table shows one set of rules that may be used to aggregatedata in messages, depending on the type of data. For arrays, elementsneed not be merged, but instead JSON values can be overwritten for thearray in the aggregate with the last array value received.

With Type of JSON Data to Aggregate Without MERGE Data {msg1}, {msg2}MERGE (*) (*) Additional {a: 1, b: 2}, {c: 3} {c: 3} {a: 1, b: 2,key/value c: 3} Different value {a: 2}, {a: “2”} {a: “2”} {a: “2”}datatype Missing key/value {a: 2}, { } {a: 2} {a: 2} null value {a: 2},{a: null} {a: null} {a: null} Different key value {a: {b: 1}}, {a: {c:2}} {a: {c: 2}} {a: {b: 1, c: 2}} Arrays {a: [1, 2]}, {a: [3, 4]} {a:[3, 4]} {a: [3, 4]}

The query instructions can be comprised of one or more suitable filtercommands, statements, functions, or syntax. For purposes of illustrationand not limitation, in addition to the SELECT and MERGE functions, thequery instructions can include filter statements or functions, such as,for example, ABS(expr), AVG(expr), COALESCE(a[, b . . . ]), CONCAT(a[, b. . . ]), COUNT(expr), COUNT DISTINCT(expr), IFNULL(expr1, expr2),JSON(expr), MIN(expr[, expr1, . . . ]), MAX(expr[, expr1, . . . ]),SUBSTR(expr, expr1[, expr2]), SUM(expr), MD5(expr), SHA1(expr),FIRST_VALUE(expr) OVER (ORDER BY expr1), and/or LAST_VALUE(expr) OVER(ORDER BY expr1), where “expr” can be any suitable expression that iscapable of being processed by a filter statement or function, such as,for example, a SQL or SQL-like expression. Other suitable filtercommands, statements, functions, or syntax are possible for the queryinstructions.

According to the present invention, non-filtered queries can translateto an immediate copy of the message to the subscriber, without any JSONor other like processing. Queries that include a SELECT filter command(without aggregation) can translate into an immediate filter. Ininstances in which the messages are formatted using JSON, each messagemay be individually parsed and any WHERE clause may be executed directlyon the individual message as it arrives, without the need for creatingindices or other temporary data structures. If the messages pass theWHERE clause filter, the SELECT clause results in a filtered messagethat can be converted back to its original format or structure (e.g.,JSON) and sent to the subscriber.

Aggregative functions, such as, for example, COUNT( ), SUM( ), AVG( ),and the like, can translate into an immediate aggregator. In instancesin which the messages are formatted using JSON, each message may beindividually parsed and any WHERE clause may be executed directly on theindividual message as it arrives, without the need for creating indicesor other temporary data structures. If a WHERE clause is evaluated,messages passing such criteria are aggregated (e.g., aggregates in theSELECT clause are executed, thereby accumulating COUNT, SUM, AVG, and soforth) using the previous accumulated value and the value from theindividual message. Once per aggregation period (e.g., every 1 second),the aggregates are computed (e.g., AVG=SUM/COUNT), and the SELECT clauseoutputs the aggregated message, which can be converted to its originalformat or structure (e.g., JSON) and sent to the subscriber.

More complex aggregative functions, such as, for example, GROUP BY,JOIN, HAVING, and the like, can be translated into a hash tableaggregator. Unlike SELECT or other like functions that can use aconstant memory, linearly expanding memory requirements can be dependentupon the results of the GROUP BY clause. At most, grouping by a uniquevalue (e.g., SSN, etc.) can result in a group for each individualmessage, but in most cases grouping by a common data element (e.g.,user_id or other repeating value) can result in far fewer groups. Inpractice, each message is parsed (from its JSON format, for example).The WHERE clause can be executed directly on the individual message asit arrives, without creating indices or other temporary structures. Ifthe WHERE clause is satisfied, the GROUP BY expressions can be computeddirectly and used to build a hash key for the group. The aggregativefunctions in the SELECT clause can be executed, accumulating COUNT, SUM,AVG, or other functions using the previous accumulated value specificfor the hash key (group) and the value from the individual message. Onceper aggregation period (e.g., every 1 second), the aggregates arecomputed (e.g., AVG=SUM/COUNT) for each hash key (group), and the SELECTclause can output the aggregated message for each hash key to beconverted back to its original format or structure (e.g., JSON) and sentto the subscriber (e.g., one message per hash key (group)).

In embodiments in which the aggregation period is limited (e.g., 1second-60 seconds) and the network card or other hardware/throughputspeeds may be limited (e.g., 10/gbps), the overall maximal memoryconsumption can be calculated as time*speed (e.g., 1 GB per second, or60 GB per minute). Hence, the upper bound is independent of the numberof subscribers. In certain implementations, each message only need beparsed once (e.g., if multiple filters are set by multiple clients) andonly if needed based on the query instructions, as an empty filter doesnot require parsing the message.

Referring to FIG. 7A, subscriptions can include a “period” parameter,generally defined in, for example, seconds and in some embodiments canrange from 1 to 60 seconds, although other time increments and timeranges are possible. The period parameter(s) can be purely sequential(e.g., ordinal) and/or time-based (e.g., temporal) and included in theself-described data and therefore available for querying, aggregation,and the like. For example, FIG. 7A illustrates the filter processaccording to the present invention for the first three seconds with aperiod of 1 second. In the present example, the subscription starts att=0. The filter created from the query instructions is applied againstall messages received during each 1-second period (e.g., one message ata time). The results for each period are then batched and forwarded tothe subscriber. Depending on the query instructions used, the messagescan be aggregated using the aggregation functions discussed previouslybefore the message data is sent to the subscriber.

In some cases, the process defaults to sending only new, incomingmessages that meet the query instructions on to the subscriber. However,a subscriber can subscribe with history and use a filter, such that thefirst message or messages sent to the subscriber can be the historicalmessages with the filter applied. Using the period of max_age and/or a“next” parameter provides additional functionality that allows forretrieval and filtering of historical messages.

More particularly, a max_age parameter included with the queryinstructions can facilitate the retrieval of historical messages thatmeet this parameter. FIG. 7B illustrates an example of a max_ageparameter of 2 seconds (with a period of 1 second) that is provided withthe query instructions. The filter created from the query instructionsis applied to the historical messages from the channel that arrived fromt−2 through t=0 (t=0 being the time the subscription starts), and to themessages that arrived in the first period (from t=0 to t+1). Thesemessages can be sent in a single batch to the subscriber (as Group 1).The filter is applied to each message in each subsequent period (e.g.,from t+1 to t+2 as Group 2) to batch all messages that meet the queryinstructions within that period. Each batch is then forwarded on to thesubscriber.

When a subscriber subscribes with a “next” parameter to a channel with afilter, the filter can be applied to all messages from the next value upto the current message stream position for the channel, and the resultscan be sent to the subscriber in, for example, a single batch. Forexample, as illustrated in FIG. 7C, a next parameter is included withthe query instructions (with a period of 1 second). The next parameterinstructs the process to apply the filter created from the queryinstructions to each message from the “next position” up through thecurrent stream position (e.g., up to t=0) and to the messages thatarrived in the first period (from t=0 to t+1). These messages can besent in a single batch to the subscriber (as Group 1). The filter isapplied to each message in each subsequent period (e.g., from t+1 to t+2as Group 2) to batch all messages that meet the query instructionswithin that period. Each batch is then forwarded on the subscriber.

When a subscriber subscribes with a next parameter, chooses to receivehistorical messages on a channel, and includes a filter in thesubscription, the subscriber can be updated to the current messagestream position in multiple batches. FIG. 7D illustrates an example of amax_age parameter of 2 seconds (with a period of 1 second) and a nextparameter that can be combined into one set of query instructions. Thefilter created from the query instructions is applied to the historicalmessages from the channel that arrived from the end of the history tothe “next” value of the subscription (i.e., from 2 seconds before thenext value up to the next value), to the messages from the next value tothe current stream position (e.g., up to t=0), and to the messages thatarrived in the first period (from t=0 to t+1). These messages can besent in a single batch to the subscriber (as Group 1). The filter isapplied to each message in each subsequent period (e.g., from t+1 to t+2as Group 2) to batch all messages that meet the query instructionswithin that period. Each batch is then forwarded on the subscriber.Consequently, historical messages can be combined with messages thatstart at a particular period indicator and batched for transmission tothe subscriber.

The query instructions can define how one or more filters can be appliedto the incoming messages in any suitable manner. For example, theresulting filter(s) can be applied to any or all messages arriving ineach period, to any or all messages arriving across multiple periods, toany or all messages arriving in select periods, or to any or allmessages arriving on a continuous or substantially continuous basis(i.e., without the use of a period parameter such that messages are notretained before returning them to the subscriber). Such filteredmessages can be batched in any suitable manner or sent individually(e.g., one message at a time) to subscribers. In particular, thefiltered messages can be sent to the subscriber in any suitable formator syntax. For example, the following illustrates the structure ofseveral fields of a sample channel PDU that contains the message resultsfrom a filter request:

{   ″action″: ″channel/data″,   “body”: {    ″channel″: ChannelName   ″next″: ChannelStreamPosition    ″messages″: [ChannelData]+  // Canbe one or more messages   } }In the above channel PDU, the “channel” field can be a value (e.g.,string or other appropriate value or designation) of the channel name towhich the subscriber has subscribed. The “next” field can provide thechannel stream position of the batch of messages returned in the channelPDU. The “messages” field provides the channel data of the messagesresulting from application of the specified filter. One or more messagescan be returned in the “messages” field in such a channel PDU. It isnoted that a channel PDU can include any other suitable fields,parameters, values, or data.

FIG. 8 is a diagram of an example system architecture 800 that may beused to manage and track assets that may be associated with anorganizational entity. The system architecture 800 includes an assetmanagement component 810, a messaging system 820, client devices 830,and assets 840. In one embodiment, the system architecture 800 may beoperated by an organizational entity. An organizational entity may be acompany, a government entity (e.g., a city government, a stategovernment, etc.), or some other organization that may wish to track andmanage the assets 840 in a geographical area. Administrators,supervisors, managers, inspectors, or other like users of theorganizational entity who may wish to track and management the assets840 in the geographical area may be referred to herein as administratorsor administrative users.

In one embodiment, an asset 840 may be a person or a physical objectthat may be associated with an organizational entity. For example, anasset may be an employee of a company or corporation. In anotherexample, an asset may be a bus that provides public transportation alongone or more routes for a city. The asset 840 may be associated with anorganizational entity if the asset 840 is owned by the organizationalentity, is used by the organizational entity, is operated by theorganizational entity, works for the organizational entity, or islocated in a geographical area associated with the geographical entity.For example, the company or corporation may purchase a shuttle bus totransport employees. In another example, a parking lot may be locatedwithin the boundary or borders of a city. In one embodiment, an asset840 may have an operator when the asset 840 is a physical object. Forexample, a bus (e.g., an asset 840) may have a bus driver (e.g., anoperator). In another example, a parking lot (e.g., an asset 840) mayhave a parking lot attendant or a person who owns or operates theparking lot (e.g., an operator). The operator of an asset 840 may bereferred to herein as an operator.

In one embodiment, an asset 840 may be a transportation asset. Atransportation asset may be physical object that may provide publictransportation or private transportation services for a geographicalarea. Examples of transportation assets may include, but are not limitedto, cars, buses, coaches, taxis, passenger trains, commuter rails,ferries, traffic lights, ridesharing vehicles, street lights, parkingspaces, parking meters, parking garages, parking lots, roadconstructions, road signs, street cameras, trolleybuses, light rail,trams, subways, rapid transit, aerial tramways, auto rickshaws, schoolbuses, postal service vehicles, emergency response vehicles (e.g.,police cars, ambulances, firetrucks), aerial drones, autonomousvehicles, etc.

Each asset 840 may include an asset component 841. In one embodiment,the asset components 841 may include computing devices (e.g.,smartphones, tablet or laptop computers, PDAs, etc.) or may includesoftware components (e.g., applications, software, apps, softwareservices) executing on the one or more computing devices located inassets 840. For example, the asset components 841 may be smartphones ormay be applications executing on a smartphone. The asset component 841may present or display various graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to theoperator of the asset 840. For example, the asset component 841 may bean app that displays a GUI that may display routes on a map, displaygeographical locations where passengers are waiting, etc. The GUIsprovided, presented, or displayed by an asset component 841 may bereferred to herein as operator GUIs. The asset components 841 may alsoinclude other types of devices, such as a radio-frequency identification(RFID) sensor, device, scanner or reader, Internet of Things (IoT)sensor or device, a bar code scanner or reader, a card reader, a globalpositioning system (GPS) receiver or other suitable device capable ofdetermining the live location of the asset 840, etc.

In one embodiment, an asset component 841 may publish one or moremessages to one or more of the channels 821A through 821Z. This mayallow the asset component 841 to publish messages to various othercomponents or portions of the system architecture 800. For example, thismay allow the asset component 841 to publish messages to the assetmanagement component 810, to other assets 840, or to client components831. In another embodiment, an asset component 841 may also subscribe toone or more of the channels 821A through 821Z. This may allow the assetcomponent 841 to receive messages from various other components orportions of the system architecture 800. For example, this may allow theasset component 841 to receive messages from the asset managementcomponent 810, from other assets 840 or asset components 841, or fromclient components 831.

In some embodiments, one or more assets 840 may be associated with aprice or a rate (e.g., a cost over time) for using the respective asset840. For example, a bus (e.g., an asset 840) may be associated with aprice for taking a ride on the bus as the bus travels along a route. Inanother example, a parking space (e.g., an asset 840) may be associatedwith a price or a rate for parking in the parking space. The prices orrates associated with the one or more assets 840 may be changed orupdated by the asset management component 810, as discussed in moredetail below. An asset 840 may also be associated with multiple pricesor rates. For example, a parking space may have a first price duringwork hours and a second price after work hours.

In one embodiment, a client device 830 may be a computing or electronicdevice of a user who may utilize or use one or more of the assets 840.The users may also want to be aware of the conditions, timeliness, waittimes, etc., for the assets 840. Examples of computing or electronicdevices may include smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs),tablet computers, laptop computers, desktop computers, gaming consoles,cellular phones, media players, etc. Each client device 830 includesclient component 831. In one embodiment, the client components 831 mayinclude software components executing on the client devices 830. Forexample, the client components 831 may be applications, software, apps,software services, etc., that are executing on the client devices 830.The client component 830 may provide, present, or display variousgraphical user interfaces (GUIs) to the user of client device 830. Forexample, the client component 831 may be an app that displays a GUI thatincludes maps, tables, charts, text, images, etc. In another example,the client components 831 may be web browsers executing on the clientdevices 830. The GUIs provided, presented, or displayed by a clientcomponent 831 of may be referred to herein as user GUIs.

In one embodiment, a client component 831 may publish one or moremessages to one or more of the channels 821A through 821Z. This mayallow the client component 831 to publish messages to various othercomponents or portions of the system architecture. For example, this mayallow the client component 831 to publish messages to the assetmanagement component 810, to one or more assets 840, or to other clientcomponents 831. In another embodiment, a client component 831 may alsosubscribe to one or more of the channels 821A through 821Z. This mayallow the client component 831 to receive messages from various othercomponents or portions of the system architecture 800. For example, thismay allow the client component 831 to receive messages from the assetmanagement component 810, from assets 840 or asset components 841, orfrom other client components 831. Client components 831 are discussed inmore detail below.

In one embodiment, the messaging system 820 may support the PubSubcommunication pattern, as described earlier in reference to FIGS. 1Athrough 5D. The messaging system 820 may be referred to as a PubSubsystem or a PubSub messaging system. The messaging system 820 caninclude or otherwise support any suitable number of channels, such as,for example, channels 821A through 821Z. The messages published tochannels 821A through 821Z (e.g., channel streams) may be divided intostreamlets, which may be stored within Q nodes of the messaging system820, as described earlier in reference to FIGS. 1A through 5D. C nodesof the messaging system 820 may be used to offload data transfers fromone or more Q nodes (e.g., to cache some of the streamlets stored in theQ nodes). Client devices 830 and assets 840 may establish respectivepersistent connections (e.g., TCP connections or the like) to one ormore MX nodes. The one or more MX nodes may serve as termination pointsfor these connections, as described earlier in reference to FIGS. 1Athrough 5D. A configuration manager (illustrated in FIG. 2) may allowusers (e.g., client components 831) and assets (e.g., asset components841) to subscribe to channels and to publish to channels. For example,the configuration manager may authenticate users to determine whetherusers are allowed to publish to a channel. In another example, theconfiguration manager may authenticate vehicles to determine whethervehicles are allowed to subscribe to a channel.

In one embodiment, the messages that are published or received via thechannels 821A through 821Z may be include information or data associatedwith the assets 840. For example, the message may include livegeographical locations, status, metrics or other performance-relatedinformation, utilization rates, or other like information or data of orabout the assets 840. Each message may be stored in a respective bufferfor the channel associated with the message. The messages in therespective buffer may be stored according to an order, as discussedabove. For example, messages in a buffer may be stored in the order inwhich the messages were published to a respective channel. Each buffermay have an expiration time based on when the buffer was allocated to arespective channel, as discussed above. The messaging system 820 mayretrieve messages for the particular channel from one or more buffersallocated to the channel that have not expired and according to theorder.

In one embodiment, the asset management component 810 may include one ormore computing devices (e.g., one or more server computers) or mayinclude software components executing on the one or more computingdevices. For example, the asset management component 810 may be anapplication that is executing on or distributed among one or more servercomputers. As illustrated in FIG. 8, the asset management component 810can include, for example, an authorization component 811, a videocomponent 812, a routing component 813, a pricing component 814, amonitoring component 815, a communication component 816, a userinterface component 817, and a filtering component 817.

In one embodiment, the asset management component 810 may allowadministrators to manage, track, utilize, control, and communicate withthe assets 840 that are associated with an organizational entity. Forexample, the asset management component 810 may allow administrators orusers to view the live geographical locations of or other appropriateinformation about the assets 840. In another example, the assetmanagement component 810 may allow administrators users to view theutilization rates of the assets 840. In a further example, the assetmanagement component 810 may allow administrators to control the pricingof an asset 840. In another example, the asset management component 810may allow administrators or users to determine performance metrics forthe assets 840. In a further example, the asset component 810 may allowadministrators to view the conditions or statuses of an asset 840 (e.g.,to view the level of a gas tank in a bus, to view the tire pressure ofone or more tires of a bus, to determine that a bus has a flat tire,etc.). Generally, the asset management component 810 may allow the userto view any type of information or data about the assets 840 that may bemanaged, collected, tracked, etc. For example, the asset managementcomponent 810 may display, present, or provide various metrics,statistics, performance information, etc. regarding each asset. In oneembodiment, the asset management component 810 may allow a singleadministrator (e.g., a single person) to monitor, control, and manageall of the assets 840 within the geographical area. For example, theasset management component 810 may allow a single person to monitor,control, and manage all of the transportation assets within city (orother geographical area).

In one embodiment, the asset management component 810 may allow anadministrator to add one or more assets 840 to or remove one or moreassets 840 from the system architecture 800. For example, the assetmanagement component 810 may allow an administrator to add a bus to thesystem architecture 800. In another example, the asset managementcomponent 810 may allow a user to remove a shuttle from the systemarchitecture 800. The asset management component 810 may provide one ormore administrator GUIs that may allow the administrator to provideidentifying information for an asset 840 (e.g., a serial number, make ormodel number of a car, etc.). The asset management component 810 mayalso allow the administrator to indicate a price for use of the asset840. The asset management component 810 may further allow the user toprovide various other information or data associated with the asset 840.

In one embodiment, the asset management component 810 may allow anadministrator to add one or more operators of assets 840, to remove oneor more operators of assets 840, and to associate different operatorswith different assets 840. For example, the asset management component810 may change the driver of a bus from one person to another person. Inanother example, the asset management component 810 may allow anadministrator to add a new driver, which may be assigned to drivedifferent buses or shuttles, to the system architecture 800. The assetmanagement component 810 may provide one or more administrator GUIS thatmay allow the administrator to add, remove, or associate operators withdifferent assets 840 (e.g., assign operators to different assets 840).

In one embodiment, the asset management component 810 may allow anadministrator to specify or indicate the types and amounts of data,information, statistics, or performances metrics that should be tracked,collected or managed. For example, the asset management component 810may allow a user to indicate that assets 840 should provide their livegeographical locations every second, or every two seconds. In anotherexample, the asset management component 810 may allow an administratorto indicate that the assets 840 should provide information about theirspeeds but not about their fuel consumption or fuel efficiency. Theasset management component 810 may provide one or more administratorGUIS that may allow the administrator to specify or indicate the typesand amounts of data, information, statistics, or performances metricsthat should be tracked, collected or managed.

In one embodiment, the asset management component 810 may allow anadministrator to add, remove, or change travel routes for differentassets 840. For example, the asset management component 810 may allow anadministrator to add a new route to the system architecture 800. Theasset management component 81 may also allow the administrator toindicate the stops for a travel route (e.g., the geographical locationswhere an asset 840, such as a bus, should stop along the travel route topick up passengers). In another example, the asset management component810 may allow an administrator to remove a bus route from the systemarchitecture. In a further example, the asset management component 810may allow and administrator to modify or change a travel route. Forexample, the asset management component 810 may allow an administratorto add a stop to a travel route, move a stop in the travel route, removea stop in the travel route, change the roads or highways used in atravel route, change the distance or length of a travel route, etc. Theasset management component 810 may also allow the administrator toassociate travel routes with different assets 840. For example, theasset management component 810 may allow the administrator to associatea first bus with a travel route one day and associated a second bus withthe same travel route the next day (e.g., reassign the second bus to thetravel route the next day). The asset management component 810 mayprovide one or more administrator GUIS that may allow the administratorto add, remove, or change travel routes for different assets 840.

In one embodiment, the monitoring component 815 may allow the assetmanagement component 810 to track the geographical locations andmovements of the assets 840. For example, the monitoring component 815may receive messages from a postal service vehicle (e.g., an asset 840)via a channel of the messaging system 820, where the postal servicevehicle publishes messages about its current geographical location. Themonitoring component 815 may determine the geographical locations andtrack the movements of the postal service vehicle based on the messagespublished by (or on behalf of) the vehicle.

In one embodiment, the routing component 813 may determine livepredictions or estimations of an arrival time for an asset 840. Forexample, when a client device 830 or a user requests to view the currentstatus or geographical location of a shuttle, the routing component 813may provide a live prediction that the shuttle will arrive at the user'slocation at a certain time. In another embodiment, the routing component813 may also determine live predications or estimations of departuretimes for an asset 840. For example, the routing component 813 mayanalyze messages published by an asset 840 that indicate thegeographical locations (e.g., GPS coordinates) of the asset 840. Therouting component 813 may also determine how long an asset 840previously stayed at a stop along a route. The routing component 813 mayestimate an estimated departure time from the stop, based on how longthe asset 840 previous stayed at the stop.

In one embodiment, the routing component 813 may analyze a history ofprevious trips taken by assets 840 over predetermined time periods togenerate a plurality of trip models for the assets 840. For example, therouting component 813 may analyze the last few trips or routes traveledby the assets 840 in a geographical area. The routing component 813 mayanalyze the speeds of the assets 840, changes in speeds, the amount oftime waiting at stoplights or traffic lights, etc. Based on thisanalysis, the routing component 813 may generate the plurality of tripmodels, as discussed in more detail below. The trip models may be usedto predict or estimate the arrival time of an asset 840, as discussed inmore detail below. For example, the routing component 813 may analyze acurrent route or trip of an asset 840. The routing component 813 mayselect a trip model that most closely represents the current route ortrip of the asset 840. For example, the routing component 813 maydetermine that an asset 840 is experience traffic along a route or atrip. The routing component 813 may select a trip model that may be usedpredict arrival times during periods of traffic (e.g., during rushhour).

In one embodiment, the user interface component 817 may display one ormore of the live geographical locations, live arrival times, or anyother suitable information of or about assets 840 to one or moreadministrators. For example, the user interface component 817 maypresent a graphical user interface (GUI), which may be displayed to theadministrator via a web page that is hosted by the user interfacecomponent 817. The administrator may view the web page using a browserlocated on a computing device of the administrator. For example, theadministrator may use a web browser on a table computer of theadministrator, to view the web page which may present the GUI to theadministrator. The GUI may display various types of information of orabout the assets 840 such as, for example, a map of a geographical area,the live geographical locations of assets 840 on the map, or one or moreestimated arrival times of the assets 840, information about assets suchas statistical information, utilization, performance information, etc.,as discussed in more detail below. The types of information about theassets 840 that are described herein are merely examples and other typesof information about the asset 840 may be managed, collected, tracked,or displayed by the asset management component 810. The various GUIsthat may be provided, presented, or displayed to an administrator may bereferred to as administrator GUIs. The administrator GUIs may also allowthe administrator to manage, monitor, and control any or all of theassets 840 in the geographical area. In some embodiments, the assetmanagement component 810 may provide information to a client component831 to allow the client component 831 to display one or more of the livegeographical locations or live arrival times of assets 840. For example,the asset management component 810 may publish messages to one or morechannels 821A through 821Z of the messaging system 820. The messages mayindicate the live geographical locations or live arrival times of theassets 840. The client component 831 may receive the messages and maypresent a user GUI to the user to display the live geographicallocations or the live estimated arrival times.

In one embodiment, the monitoring component 815 may monitor the liveuser demand for the assets 840. For example, the monitoring component815 may determine how many users are currently requesting to view a busroute or the live geographical location for the bus. In another example,the monitoring component 815 may determine how many users are currentlyreserving rides on a shuttle. In another embodiment, the monitoringcomponent 815 may also identify (live) changes in the demand from usersfor the assets 840. For example, the monitoring component 815 maydetermine that an increasing number of users are currently requesting aparticular bus. In another example, the monitoring component 815 maydetermine that more and more parking spaces are becoming available in aparking lot.

In one embodiment, the monitoring component 815 may reallocate orreroute one or more assets 840 based on the live user demand. Forexample, the monitoring component may add additional buses to a route inresponse to determining that an increased number of users are requestingrides along the route. In another example, the monitoring component 815may determine that more and more users are parking in a parking garage.The monitoring component 815 may open up additional spaces and/or levelsof the parking garage to allow more users to park in the parking garage.

In one embodiment, a pricing component 814 may change the pricing forone or more assets 840 based on the change in user demand for the one ormore assets 840. The pricing component 814 may make live changes to thepricing of the assets 840 to incentivize users to use different oralternative types of assets 840. For example, if fewer and fewer parkingspaces are available in a parking lot for a sports stadium, the pricingcomponent 814 may increase the prices for the remaining parking spacesin the stadium parking lot. The pricing component 814 may alsocorrespondingly decrease the price of buses and trains that have routeswhich travel to the sports stadium. This may incentivize users to takebuses and trains rather than drive to the sports stadium.

In one embodiment, the routing component 813 may receive an indicationfrom a user that the user wants to travel from a first geographicallocation to a second geographical location. The routing component 813may determine a travel route from one geographical location to anothergeographical location. The routing component 813 may determine thetravel route based on, for example, one or more of the live geographicallocations of the assets 840 and live estimated arrival times of theassets 840, as well as other appropriate route planning information. Therouting component 813 may also determine the travel route based onperformance metrics, statics, and other data about the assets 840. Forexample, the routing component 831 may use the wait times for trafficlights along different travel route to determine whether one travelroute may be faster than another travel route. The routing component 813may recommend the travel route to the user. For example, the routingcomponent 813 may publish messages with data indicating the route to aclient component 831, which can use such data to display the route tothe user on a map via a user GUI provided, presented, or displayed bythe client component 831. The routing component 813 may also determinean estimated time of arrival for the user at the second geographicallocation or may determine an estimated travel time. For example, therouting component 813 may determine the estimated time of arrival for atravel route and may publish a message indicating the estimated time ofarrival to a channel of the messaging system 820. The client componentmay receive the message via the channel and the user GUI presented by aclient component 831 may display the estimated time of arrival. In someembodiments, the travel route may use multiple types of assets or mayuse multi-modal transportation. For example, the travel route may useboth public transportation assets (e.g., public transit such as buses,trams, trolleys, etc.) and private transportation assets (e.g., taxis,ridesharing vehicles, etc.).

In one embodiment, the routing component 813 may receive a request froma user for an asset 840 to travel to a particular geographical location.For example, a user may publish a message on a particular channel of themessaging system 820 requesting an asset 840 to take the user to ageographical location. The message may include an identifier for theuser (e.g., a user name, an electronic mail (email) address, analphanumeric value, an identification number, a phone number, a valuethat may be used to identify the user, etc.). The routing component 813may subscribe to the particular channel to receive these requests tochange routes from the users. The routing component 831 may publish amessage to an asset component 841 to instruct an operator to pick up theuser at the specified geographical location.

The routing component 813 may publish messages indicating an estimatedtime of arrival for an asset 840 at a geographical location, may publishmessages indicating that an asset 840 is within a threshold distance ofa geographical location (e.g., within two hundred meters or othersuitable distance), or may publish messages indicating that the asset840 will arrive at a geographical location within a period of time(e.g., within the next five minutes or other appropriate time period).Each message may include, for example, the time (e.g., within fiveminutes) or distance (e.g., within two hundred meters) and thegeographical location. Other information in such messages is possible.

In one embodiment, the routing component 813 may track the user or theuser's client device 830 as the user travels or moves along the travelroute using one or more assets 840, or may track the live geographicallocations of the asset(s) 840 that is/are being used by the user. Forexample, the client component 831 of the user's client device 830 maycontinuously or periodically publish messages indicating the currentgeographical location of the client device 830 to one or more of thechannels 821A through 821Z. In another example, an asset component 841may continuously or periodically publish messages every second, everytwo seconds, etc., indicating the current geographical location of theclient device 831 to one or more of the channels 821A through 821Z.

The routing component 813 may analyze one or more of the messagespublished by the client component 831 or the asset component 841 todetermine whether the user will arrive at the second geographicallocation by the estimated time of arrival or within a threshold of theestimated time of arrival. If the routing component 813 determines thatthe user may not arrive at the at the second geographical location bythe estimated time of arrival or within a threshold of the estimatedtime of arrival, the routing component 813 may determine a second travelroute or an updated travel route that may allow the user to arrive atthe second geographical location more quickly. For example, there may adisruption or problem along the travel route of the user due to traffic,a car accident, a malfunctioning traffic light, etc., which may causethe user to arrive after the estimated time of arrival. The routingcomponent 813 may determine the second travel route based on one or moreof the live geographical locations of the assets 840 and live estimatedarrival times of the assets 840, as discussed above. The second travelroute may use different assets 840 or may use some of the assets 840that were used in the first travel route. The routing component 813 mayrecommend the second travel route to the user, as discussed above. Ifthe routing component 813 cannot determine a second travel route thatmay allow the user to arrive at the second geographical location morequickly, then routing component 813 may provide a revised estimated timeof arrival for the first travel route

The routing component 813 may also provide new travel routes tooperators of the assets 840 based on the determination of whether theuser will arrive at the second geographical location by the estimatedtime of arrival or within a threshold of the estimated time of arrival.For example, if the routing component 813 determines that there istraffic on a highway used in a first travel route for an asset 840 baseda video of the highway that was analyzed by the video component 812, therouting component 813 may identify one or more other travel routes thatmay avoid the use of the highway. The routing component 813 may publishone or more messages to a channel of the messaging system 820 to providethe one or more travel routes to the asset 840. The asset 840 mayselected one of the one or more travel routes to avoid the highway.

In one embodiment, the monitoring component 815 may provide one or moreadministrator GUIs to administrators, supervisors, managers, inspectors,or other like users of the organizational entity. The administrators,supervisors, managers, inspectors, or other like users of theorganizational entity may monitor the usage, utilization, statuses,performance, conditions, geographical locations, problems, etc. of theassets 840 using the system architecture 800. The monitoring component815 may also monitor the live geographical location of the users of theclient devices 830, such as passengers. The live geographical locationsof the users may allow the routing component 813 to determine travelroutes or trips for the users, based on their live geographicallocations. The one or more administrator GUIs that are presented to theusers may allow the administrators, supervisors, managers, inspectors,or other like users of the organizational entity to view all of theassets 840 that may be associated with the organizational entity and toview information related to the assets 840 such as, for example,performance metrics, statistics, utilizations, incidents, problems, etc.

In one embodiment, the monitoring component 815 may display the livelocations of the assets 840 in a geographical location. For example, themonitoring component may present an administrator GUI that displays amap of a geographical area, such as a few square blocks of a city, acity, a municipality, a county, a state, a province, a country, or othersuitable geographical region. The map may show the live geographicallocations of the assets 840 in the geographical area. The geographicallocations of the assets 840 may be updated on the map live, as theassets 840 move through the geographical area. For example, thegeographical location of an asset 840 may be updated within a second, afew seconds, etc., of the asset 840 moving to another geographicallocation. In another embodiment, the monitoring component 815 may alsodisplay the live locations of users of the assets 840 in a geographicallocation. For example, the monitoring component 815 may display the livelocations of all passengers who are requesting the use of a particularasset 840.

In one embodiment, the monitoring component 815 may display liveperformance metrics of each or a collection of the assets 840 in thegeographical area. For example, the monitoring component 815 may presentan administrator GUI that displays a list of assets 840. The list mayalso present one or more live performance metrics for the assets 840 inthe list. For example, the one or more live performance metrics may bedisplayed next to a respective asset 840. In another example, anadministrator may select one of the assets 840 via the administrator GUIand the live performance metrics for the selected asset 840 may bedisplayed to the administrator.

As discussed above, the assets 840 may be transportation assets, such asbuses, trains, shuttles, etc. In one embodiment, the performance metricsmay indicate the usage, arrival times, etc., of the transportationassets. For example, the performance metrics may include a count of theassets 840 in service, a count of users for each asset 840 in service, acount of tickets sold for each asset 840 in service, an occupancy rateof each asset 840 in service, an average occupancy of all assets 840 inservice, a speed of each asset 840 in service, an average speed of allassets 840 in service, and a timeliness of each asset 840 in service(e.g., whether bus arrives at a stop on time or within a window of aspecified time, how late or early the bus arrives at the stop, etc.).Other performance metrics are possible.

In one embodiment, the monitoring component 815 may forward or republishsome or all of the messages published by the asset components 841. Thismay allow the users (e.g., client devices 830 or client components 831)to receive messages indicating the live locations of the assets 840.This may also allow the monitoring component 815 to selectively publisha subset of the messages published by the asset components 841. Forexample, the asset management component 810 may filter out messages (asdescribed earlier in reference to FIGS. 6-7D) from a bus, because a busmay be off duty (e.g., may not be transporting passengers). In anotherexample, an asset component 841 may publish a message every second orother suitable time period, and the monitoring component 815 may publishevery other message published by the asset component 841 to reduce theamount of messages that are published to the messaging system 820. Inanother embodiment, the users may be subscribed to a channel where anasset component 841 publishes messages. This may allow the users todirectly receive messages that are published by the asset component 841.

In one embodiment, the monitoring component 815 may record a datahistory for one or more of the assets 840 or the client devices 830. Forexample, the data history for an asset 840 may indicate theon-timeliness of the asset 840 (e.g., whether the asset is on time, howlate an asset is, etc.). The monitoring component 815 may display orpresent at least a portion of the data history recorded for one or moreassets 840 on an administrator GUI. For example, the monitoringcomponent 815 may display a graph indicating the whether an asset 840 ison-time or how long an asset is delayed for various stops along a route.

In one embodiment, the filtering component 818 may filter one or moremessages published to the channels 821A through 821Z to transforminformation regarding at least one characteristic of one or more assets840 requested by a user of the assets 840 (e.g., a passenger) or by anadministrator. For example, the filtering component 818 may query searchthe messages published to the at least one messaging channel by thetransportation assets to inspect information regarding at least onecharacteristic of one or more transportation assets requested by theuser. For instance, a user may specify that the user only wants totravel using buses. The type of the asset (e.g., a bus) may be acharacteristic of the one or more assets 840. The filtering component818 may filter the messages indicating the live geographical locationsof the assets 840 to identify only messages that were published bybuses. In another instance, an administrator may specify that theadministrator wants to view the estimated arrival times for all trainsin a geographical area.

In one embodiment, the video component 812 may allow operators of theassets 840, users of client devices 830, or administrators to manage,view, analyze, process, etc., live video feeds that are provided by oneor more assets 840. For example, one or more of the assets 840 may be ormay include video cameras, digital cameras, or other appropriate devicesfor capturing live video. The assets 840 may record or capture livevideo and/or live audio, and may publish messages with the live videoand/or live audio to one or more of the channels 821A through 821Z. Thevideo component 812 may be subscribed to the one or more channels of themessaging system 820, which may allow the video component 812 to receivethe video.

In one embodiment, the video component 812 may forward or republish themessages with the live video and/or live audio on other channels of themessaging system 820. This may allow the video component 812 to provideclient components 831 and asset components 841 with access to the livevideo and/or live audio captured by the assets 840. This may also allowthe video component 812 to selectively provide portions of the livevideo and/or live audio to the user components 831 and asset components841. For example, the video component 812 may republish live videoand/or live audio received from traffic cameras, but may not republishlive video and/or live audio captured by a taxi. In another embodiment,users may be able to directly subscribe to the channels where an asset840 may publish messages with live video and/or live audio. For example,a user may directly subscribe to channel where a traffic camera maypublish messages that include the live video captured by the trafficcamera.

In one embodiment, the video component 812 may analyze the live videoand/or live audio captured by one or more assets 840. For example, atraffic camera may provide live video of the cars driving through anintersection. The video component 812 may analyze the live video and maycount the number of cars that drive through the intersection during aperiod of time. The video component 812 may also determine the types ofcars that drive the intersection. For example, the video component 812may determine how many sedans, trucks, SUVs, big rigs, motorcycles,etc., drive through the intersection.

In one embodiment, the video component 812 may process the live videoand/or live audio captured by one or more assets 840. For example, thevideo component 812 may analyze live video of a section of a freeway toidentify license plate numbers that appear in the live video. The videocomponent 812 may remove or obscure the license plate numbers in thelive video before republishing the modified live video. This may allowthe video component 812 to protect the privacy of people who are drivingdown the section of the freeway while still allowing users,administrators, and operators of assets 840 to view the live video.

In one embodiment, the video component 812 may perform live analysis orlive processing of the live video captured by one or more assets 840.For example, the video component 812 may analyze or process the livevideo within milliseconds or seconds of receiving the live video. Thismay allow the video component 812 to provide live information to usersof the client device 830, operators of the assets 840, oradministrators. For example, when traffic occurs due to a sudden caraccident on a road, the video component 812 may be able to indicate topassengers, bus drivers, taxi drivers, shuttle drivers, etc., that thereis an accident within a second or seconds of the accident. This mayallow the bus drivers, taxi drivers, shuttle drivers, etc., to try tofind alternate routes that may avoid the road where the accidentoccurred. This may also allow passengers to search for alternate tripsor routes that may avoid the road where the accident occurred. This mayfurther allow the routing component 813 to identify one or morealternate routes that may avoid the road where the accident occurred.The routing component 813 may publish messages indicating the one ormore alternate routes to an asset component 841 for an asset 840 that ison a travel route that uses the road where the accident occurred.

In other embodiments, the assets 840 may include various other types ofsensors or data collection devices. For example, the assets 840 mayinclude temperature sensors or humidity sensors. In another example, theassets 840 may include air quality sensors. In a further example, theassets 840 may include light sensors, which may detect the amount oflight near the light sensors. The asset management component 810 mayrecommend travel routes with different types of assets 840 based on thedata received from the sensors. For example, if the sensors detect icyconditions on a freeway, the routing component 813 may recommend atravel route that uses a train instead of cars. In another example, ifthe sensors detect bad air quality, the pricing component 814 maydecrease the price of public transportation assets (e.g., buses, lightrail, etc.) to try to improve the air quality.

In one embodiment, the authorization component 811 may authenticate oneor more users of the client device 830, operators of the assets 840, oradministrators of the organizational entity before allowing access tothe system architecture 800. The users of the client device 830,operators of the assets 840, or administrators of the organizationalentity may register with the asset management system 810 by creating anaccount, as discussed in more detail below. The authorization component811 may allow a user or operator to create credentials (e.g., username,passwords, etc.) to access their accounts and may store thesecredentials for later use. The authorization component 811 mayauthenticate a user or operator when the user or operator logs intotheir account (e.g., when an operator logs into the asset managementcomponent 810 or when a user logs into the client component 831 on theirclient device 830). The authorization component 811 may also allowsecurity personnel, such as system administrators, informationtechnology (IT) personnel, network administrators, etc.) to createcredentials for the administrators to access the asset management system810. For example, the authorization component 811 may allow the securitypersonnel to create usernames and passwords for the administrators. Theauthorization component 811 may also allow the security personnel tospecify different permissions for the administrators or differentactions that may be performed by various different administrators.

In one embodiment, the administrators may be provided with more access,information, data, and capabilities than users or operators. Forexample, administrators may be allowed to change the pricing of assets840 while operators and users may not. Operators may be provided withmore access, information, data, and capabilities than users. In anotherexample, an operator may be allowed to communicate (via one or morecommunication channels) with other operators while users may not beallowed to communicate with the other operators.

In one embodiment, the authorization component 811 may issue a securitytoken to an administrator, user, or operator after the administrator,user, or operator logs in. The security token may be used to grant theadministrator, user, or operator access to one or more of thecommunication channels 821A through 821Z. For example, the securitytoken may allow an operator to publish messages on a first channel or tosubscribe to a second channel. The same security token may be usedacross the different components of the system architecture 800. Forexample, an operator of an asset 840 may also be a passenger. Theoperator may use the same security token to login as a passenger and torequest the use of the assets 840. The preferences of a administrator,user, or operator may also be tied to their account. For example, apassenger may prefer to use public transportation on their travelroutes. The authorization component 811 may store the preferences andmay associate these preferences with the passenger's account.

Although the asset management component 810 is illustrated as separatefrom the messaging system 820 in FIG. 8, the asset management component810 or portions of the asset component 810 may be included as part ofthe messaging system 820 in other embodiments. For example, the assetmanagement component 810 may be part of one or more Q nodes or may bepart of the configuration manager. In another example, the authorizationcomponent 811 may be part of the configuration manager. In someembodiments, one or more of the asset management component 810 or themessaging system 820 may be located within a datacenter or a cloudcomputing system or architecture.

It shall be understood that the configuration of the channels 821Athrough 821Z (e.g., the number of channels, and the publisher orsubscribers of the channels 821A through 821Z) illustrated in FIG. 8 aremerely examples and other configurations may be used in otherembodiments. For example, two or more channels may be combined into asingle channel and the messages may be filtered by the asset managementcomponent 810 based on, for instance, criteria provided by a user,administrator, or operator. In another example, each asset 840 maypublish messages to its own channel in the messaging system 820. In afurther example, each client component 831 may publish messagesrequesting the use of transportation assets into one channel where allsuch requests for a geographical area are received.

As discussed above, an asset 840 may be a transportation asset that maymove or travel through a geographical area such as a neighborhood, acity, a downtown area, etc. For example, some assets 840 may beshuttles, buses, or vans that are transporting passengers to differentgeographical locations, as discussed above. In one embodiment, the assetcomponent 841 of an asset 840 may continually or periodically determinethe geographical locations of the asset 840. For example, an assetcomponent 841 may include a GPS receiver or the like that maycontinually or periodically determine the GPS coordinates of the asset840. In one embodiment, the asset component 841 may publish messagesindicating the current geographical locations of asset 840 to one ormore of the channels 821A through 821Z. For example, the asset component841 may publish a message every second or other appropriate time periodthat indicates the current GPS coordinates, current address, currentlongitude and latitude, etc., of the asset 840. The message may alsoinclude an identifier for the asset 840 (e.g., an alphanumeric value, aname, an identification number, etc.) and data (e.g., GPS coordinates)to indicate the location of the asset 840.

In one embodiment, an asset component 841 may receive messages from therouting component 813 that indicate routes or updated routes for theasset 840. For example, when a bus is first turned on, the assetcomponent 841 of the bus may receive messages published by the routingcomponent 813 that may indicate the route that the bus should travelalong. In another example, the asset component 841 may receive messagesfrom the routing component 813 indicating a new route for the bus whenthe bus is reassigned to a different route. The asset component 841 maypresent a map via an operator GUI that may allow the driver of the asset840 to see the routes and updated routes. In one embodiment, the assetcomponents 841 may subscribe to one or more of the channels 821A though821Z to receive the messages indicating the routes. One having ordinaryskill in the art understands that the routing component 813 may usevarious route determination algorithms, functions, operations, etc., togenerate the route. For example, the routing component 813 may useDijkstra's algorithm, path finding algorithms, weighted path findingalgorithms, etc., to generate the route. In another embodiment, theasset component 841 may allow the operator of the asset 840 to view livegeographical locations of other assets 840 that are in a geographicalarea. For example, the asset component 841 may allow a bus driver toview the live geographical locations of other buses that are within acity, within a few square blocks of the bus, etc.

In one embodiment, the asset component 841 may allow an operator of anasset 840 (e.g., a driver of a bus or shuttle) to communicate with otheroperators of other assets 840, users of client devices 830, andadministrators (e.g., administrators, supervisors, managers, inspectors,etc., of the organizational entity). For example, the asset component841 may allow an operator of the asset 840 to transmit video (e.g.,video data, a video stream, etc.) to another operator of another asset840 by publishing messages, which include portions of the video to oneor more of the channels 821A through 821Z. In another example, the assetcomponent 841 may allow the operator of the asset 840 to transmit audio(e.g., audio data, an audio stream, etc.) to a user that is awaiting thearrival of the asset 840 by publishing messages, which include portionsof the audio to one or more of the channels 821A through 821Z. In afurther example, the asset component 841 may allow the operator of theasset 840 to publish messages to indicate problems or incidents to otheroperators, other passengers, or administrators.

In some embodiments, the asset component 841 may allow the operators ofthe assets 840, users of client devices 830, or administrators tocommunicate with each other in a way that is similar to a two-way radio(e.g., a walkie talkie). For example, a first driver of a bus may push abutton on an operator GUI presented by the asset component 841 to talkto other drivers. The audio of the first driver talking may be includedin messages and published to a channel of the messaging system. Otherdrivers or administrators may be subscribed to that channel and may beable receive the messages that include the audio of the first drivertalking.

In some embodiments, the system architecture 800 may include a pluralityof communication channels for various purposes. For example, a firstcommunication channel may allow operators to communicate with a firedepartment for a city and a second communication channel may allowoperators to communicate with the police department. In another example,a communication channel may allow operators of assets 840 to exchangeinformation about traffic conditions, road conditions, car accidents,etc., along the routes of the assets 840. The communication component816 may manage the communication channels and may grant or otherwiseallow access to the communication channels. For example, thecommunication component 816 may create new communication channels,remove communication channels, rename communications channels, etc. Thecommunication component 816 may also allow users, operators, oradministrators to join a communication channel, remove them fromcommunications channels, and grant them different permissions todifferent communication channels.

In some embodiments, the asset component 841 may present a list of thecommunication channels that the operator of the asset 840 may join. Forexample, an operator GUI presented by the asset component 841 maypresent a list of audio communication channels (e.g., channels wherelive audio data is communicated) where other operators of assets 840 maytalk with each other. In another example, an operator GUI presented bythe asset component 841 may present a list of video communicationchannels (e.g., channels where live video data is communicated) whereusers of the client device 830 and operators of assets 840 may videochat with each other. The communication channels may use the channels821A through 821Z to communicate data. For example, the audio data orvideo data for a communication channel may be published or received viaone or more of the channels 821A through 821Z. The asset component 841may allow a operator to join or leave the different communicationchannels (e.g., to connect to or disconnect from the differentcommunication channels). In some embodiments, the asset component 841may convert audio of the operator into another type of data and maypublish the converted data to one or more of the communication channels821A through 821Z. For example, the asset component 841 may convert thespeech of the operator into text (e.g., may perform a speech-to-textconversion). The asset component 841 may publish the text to one or moreof the communication channels 821A through 821Z. This may allow theoperator to transmit messages, such as email messages, text message,etc., via the communication channels 821A through 821Z.

In some embodiments, the asset component 841 may allow the operator ofan asset 840 to report various incidents that may occur while the asset840 is in operation. For example, the asset component 841 may allow ashuttle driver to report one or more incidents while the shuttle isdriving along a route. Examples of incidents may include a crashinvolving the asset 840, problems with the asset 840 (e.g., carbreakdowns, flat tire, car unable to start, etc.), incidents withpassengers (e.g., fights between passengers, disruptive or hostilepassenger, etc.), and medical incidents (e.g., passenger is injured, hasa heart attack, etc.).

The ability to communicate between the operators of the assets 840,users of client devices 830, and/or administrators may allow the assetcomponent 841 to exchange useful information. For example, a driver of abus may communicate with drivers to inform them that there is a trafficaccident at a particular road. This may allow the other users oroperators to avoid the traffic by finding an alternate road or route. Inanother example, an operator of an asset 840 may communicate with firstresponders (e.g., an ambulance) to inform the first responders thatthere are injured people at the traffic accident. This may allow thefirst responders to arrive at the traffic accident more quickly to helpthe injured people.

In one embodiment, the asset component 841 may receive requests from auser that may indicate a plurality of geographical locations. Theserequests may be requests from a user of a client device 830 for theasset 840 to pick up the user from a first geographical location and totransport the user to one or more other geographical locations. Forexample, the asset component 841 may receive a request from a user topick the user up from the user's home and to transport the user to theuser's place of work. In another embodiment, the asset component 841 mayreceive a request from the asset management component 810 (e.g., fromthe routing component 813) that may indicate the plurality ofgeographical locations. For example, the asset management component 810may plan a trip for user. The asset 840 may be used to transport theuser for a portion of the trip. The asset management component 810 maypublish a message to the asset component 841 indicating that the usershould be picked up at the train station and dropped off at an airport.

In some embodiments, the asset component 841 may allow the operator ofthe asset 840 to indicate whether the operator will accept a request totravel to various geographical locations. For example, the assetcomponent 841 may allow the operator of a taxi to indicate whether theoperator will accept a user's request to pick up the user from his worklocation and transport the user to a bus station. The asset component841 may present an operator GUI that allows the operator to indicatewhether the operator accepted or rejected the user's request.

In one embodiment, the asset component 841 may accept payment from auser of a client device 830 for usage of an asset 840. For example, theasset component 841 may accept a payment from a passenger of the shuttlefor taking a ride in the shuttle to a destination. The asset component841 may be coupled to or may include a device, which allows the assetcomponent 841 to accept the payment. For example, the asset component841 may include a card reader, a near-field communications (NFC) reader,a smart chip reader, or other point of sale device, etc.

In one embodiment, the asset component 841 may allow the operator of anasset 840 to register with the asset management component 810. Forexample, the asset component 841 may provide operator GUIs that allowthe operator to setup an account with the asset management component810, which may allow the operator to include their asset 840 as part ofthe system architecture 800. In one embodiment, the asset managementcomponent 810 may not allow the operator to operate their asset 840within or using the system architecture 800 unless the operatorregisters with the asset management component 810. For example, theasset management component 810 may not allow a driver of a taxi toaccept requests for rides from potential passengers unless the driver ofthe taxi registers their asset component 841 with the asset managementcomponent 810.

In one embodiment, the asset component 841 may allow the operator toassociate the asset component 841 with a particular asset 840. Forexample, there may be multiple buses that may be used to providedifferent routes to users in a city. The asset component 841 may allowthe driver of a bus to associate or link the asset component 841 with aparticular bus. The operator may link the asset component 841 with anasset 840 by inputting an identifier for the asset 840. For example,operator may input a vehicle identification number (VIN), a serialnumber, a license plate, etc. In another example, the operator may scana bar code or a QR code that is located on the asset 804. In someembodiments, the operator may be able to disassociate the assetcomponent 841 from a previous asset 804 and re-associate the assetcomponent 841 with a new asset 840. For example, a driver may drivedifferent buses each day. The driver may disassociate their assetcomponent 841 with a previous bus and associate their asset component841 with a new bus each day.

In one embodiment, the client component 831 may allow users (e.g.,passengers, users who want to park in a parking lot, etc.) to view thelive geographical locations, live usages or utilizations, and livestatuses or conditions of one or more assets 840. In one embodiment, theclient component 831 may provide or display a user GUI to the user. Theuser GUI may display the live geographical locations of one or more ofthe assets 840 and may also display estimated or predicted arrival timesfor one or more of the assets 840. For example, the user GUI may displaya map that includes icons, images, graphics, etc., which may indicatethe live geographical locations of the assets 840. The geographicallocations of the assets 840 may also be updated live on the map. Forexample, the geographical locations of the assets 840 may be updatedevery second, every few seconds, or other appropriate time period. Thegeographical locations of the assets 840 may be displayed to the userwithin seconds or other appropriate time period of the assettransmitting its location. In another example, the user GUI may presenta list of assets 840 and the estimated or predicted arrival times foreach asset 840 in the list of assets 840. The user GUI may also indicatea geographical location (e.g., a bus stop, a shuttle stop, a streetcorner, an address, a building, etc.) where the asset will arrive at theestimated or predicted arrival time.

In one embodiment, the client component 831 may allow the user torequest or indicate one or more geographical locations to where the userwould like to travel. For example, the client component 831 may providetext fields that allow a user to input names or addresses ofgeographical locations to where the user would like to travel. Theclient component 831 may also allow the user to input multipledestination geographical locations. For example, the client component831 may allow a user to input three or some other appropriate number ofaddresses to where the user would like to travel. This may allow theuser to specify a multi-leg trip or route. The client component 831 mayalso allow a user to indicate whether the user is willing to usemultiple modes of types of transportation. For example, a user may onlywish to use public transportation (e.g., public transit vehicles). Inanother example, a user may be willing to use both public transportationand private transportation (e.g., public transit vehicles and taxis).

In one embodiment, the client component 831 may provide an indication toa user as to whether an operator of an asset 840 will allow the user touse the asset 840. For example, the user may request that an operatorpick up the user at a specific geographical location. The clientcomponent 831 may display a user GUI with a message indicating whetherthe operator of the asset 840 can pick up the user at the specificgeographical location. In another example, the a user may request aparticular parking space in a parking lot. The client component 831 maydisplay a user GUI with a message indicating whether the parking spotwas successfully reserved by the user.

As discussed above, the asset management component 810 may receiverequests to travel from a starting geographical location to differentdestination geographical locations from the client component 831. Theasset management component 810 may publish messages indicating one ormore travel routes via a first channel of the channels 821A through821Z. The one or more travel routes may be recommended travel routesthat will allow the user to travel to the destination geographicallocations requested by the user. In one embodiment, the client component831 may receive the one or more travel routes by subscribing to thefirst channel. The client component 831 may present the recommendedtravel routes on a map displayed by a user GUI of the client component831. The client component 831 may allow the user to select one of therecommended travel routes. In one embodiment, the asset managementcomponent 810 may publish messages to an asset 840 that is part of theselected travel route to inform the operator of the asset 840 that theoperator should pick up the user at a certain geographical location andat a certain time.

In one embodiment, the client component 831 may allow the user to filterthe different travel routes provided by the asset management component810 based on various criteria. For example, the client component 831 mayallow a user to filter travel routes based on a range of durations, arange of costs, arrival times, departure times, type of transportation,etc.

In one embodiment, the client component 831 may display scheduled andestimated arrival times of one or more assets 840. For example, theclient component 831 may present a map displaying multiple assets 840 ina geographical area. The user may select one of the assets 840. Theclient component 831 may display the scheduled arrival time at ageographical location (e.g., a bus stop) for the selected asset 840. Theclient component 831 may also display an estimated arrival time at thegeographical location for the selected asset 840. The estimated arrivaltime may be different from the scheduled arrival time. For example, theestimated arrival time may be later or earlier than the scheduledarrival time. Similarly, the client component 831 may also display thescheduled and estimated departure times of the one or more assets 840.In some embodiments, the client component 831 may display a list ofassets 840 and one or more of the estimated arrival times, scheduledarrival times, estimated departure times, and schedule departure timesfor each asset on the list of assets 840.

In some embodiments, the client component 831 may also displayinformation or data indicating one or more characteristics of an asset840. For example, the client component 831 may display data indicating autilization of a bus by indicating how many passengers are on the bus(e.g., by indicating how full the bus is). In another example, theclient component 831 may display data indicating how many free spacesremain in a parking lot. In a further example, the client component 831may allow a user to determine what types of transportation assets are ina geographical location. The client component 831 may indicate whether atransportation asset is a bus, a shuttle, a train, a ridesharingvehicle, a taxi, etc. In a further example, the client component 831 maydisplay data indicating a wait time for different traffic lights in ageographical area. This may allow a user to better plan when they shouldstart walking or driving to one or more geographical locations becausethe user may be able to factor in the amount of time they may spendwaiting at stoplights to turn green. In a further example, the clientcomponent 831 may display the types of parking spaces that are availablein geographical area. The client component 831 may display whether theparking spaces are able to accommodate large vehicles such as sportutility vehicles (SUVs). The client component 831 may also displaywhether the parking spaces have time limits (e.g., a two hour time limitor the like) for using the parking space.

In one embodiment, the client component 831 may display the live pricesor live estimated prices for using different assets 840. For example,the client component 831 may display the live fares for a bus or ashuttle. In another example, the client component 831 may display a liveestimated price for a taxi based on current user demand for taxies in ageographical area. In a further example, the client component 831 maydisplay whether the parking space is associated with a flat fee (e.g., afee for the whole day) or with an hourly fee for using the parkingspace. As discussed above, the prices or costs to use an asset 840 maybe changed. For example, the fares for using a bus may be decreased andthe price for parking spaces may be increased to incentivize users totake public transportation rather than driving to a concert stadium. Theclient component 831 may be subscribed to a channel of the messagingsystem 820 where the pricing component 831 may publish messagesindicating changes in the pricing of the assets 840. The clientcomponent 831 may receive these messages and may present the updatedprices to the user via a user GUI.

As discussed above, the asset management component 810 may identify ordetermine an updated route or trip for a user. For example, if theestimated arrival time at an airport will exceed the scheduled arrivaltime by a threshold amount of time due to traffic, the asset managementcomponent 810 may identify an alternate route or trip for the user thatmay allow the user to arrive at the previously scheduled arrival time orclose to the previously scheduled arrival time. The asset managementcomponent 810 may publish one or more messages to the user indicatingthe updated or alternate route. The messages may indicate differentassets 840 that the user should use for the updated or alternate route.The client component 831 may display the update or alternate route tothe user on a map presented by a user GUI. The client component 831 mayallow a user to confirm or select the alternate route or may allow theuser to continue using the original route.

In one embodiment, the client component 831 may allow the user to selectdifferent geographical areas. For example, the client component 831 mayallow the user to enter in a zone improvement plan (ZIP) code where theuser is located. In another example, the client component 831 mayactivate a GPS receiver to automatically determine the geographicallocation of the client device 830 or the client component 831. Theclient component 831 may publish a message to the asset managementcomponent 810 to inform the asset management component 810 of thegeographical location of the client component 831. The asset managementcomponent 810 may publish one or more messages to a channel of themessaging system 820 to let the client component 831 know which assets840 are available in the geographical area where the client component831 is located. For example, the asset management component 810 maypublish a list of the assets 840, their prices, their capacities orutilization rates, their schedules, estimated times of arrival,performance metrics, etc., to one or more of the channels 821A through821Z. This may allow the user to view assets 840 and informationassociated with the assets 840 based on the location of the user (e.g.,based on the location of the user component 831). For example, this mayallow the user to view assets 840 that are local to the user.

In one embodiment, the client component 831 may allow a user to pay forusage of an asset 840 using the client component 831. For example, theclient component 831 may include a user's credit card information orbank account information. In another example, the client component 831may include billing information for other types of payment services.When a user requests or uses an asset 840, the client component 831 mayautomatically publish messages with the user's account information(e.g., credit card number, expiration date, bank account number, etc.)to the asset management component 810. The asset management component810 may charge the user's account or other payment service for the usageof the asset 840.

As discussed above, the system architecture 800 may include a pluralityof communication channels for various purposes. In one embodiment, theclient component 831 may join one or more of the communication channels.For example, the client component 831 may present a list of audiocommunication channels (e.g., channels where live audio data iscommunicated) and the user may select one or more of the audiocommunication channels to join. This may allow a user to talk with otherusers, operators of the assets 840, and administrators.

In some embodiments, the client component 831 may allow the user of aclient device 830 to report various incidents that may occur while usingan asset. For example, client component 831 may allow a user to reporton the driving behavior of an operator of an asset 840 (e.g., whetherthe operator is a reckless driver). Other examples of incidents mayinclude a crash involving the asset 840, problems with the asset 840(e.g., car breakdowns, flat tire, car unable to start, etc.), incidentswith passengers (e.g., fights between passengers, disruptive or hostilepassenger, etc.), and medical incidents (e.g., passenger is injured, hasa heart attack, etc.).

In one embodiment, the client component 831 may allow the user toregister with the asset management component 810. The client component831 may request various types of information from a user, such as auser's legal name, a username, a password, a user's mailing address,billing or account information, a phone number, etc. In one embodiment,the asset management component 810 may not allow a user to use theassets 840 until the user has registered with the asset managementcomponent 810. For example, the asset management component 810 may notallow a user to request an asset 840 or receive travel routes unless theuser registers their client component 831 with the asset managementcomponent 810.

FIG. 9 is a diagram of a routing component 813 that may predict orestimate arrival times of an asset, such as a transportation asset. Asdiscussed above, the routing component 813 may predict or estimatearrival times for an asset (e.g., an asset 840 illustrated in FIG. 8,such as a bus, a shuttle, etc.) at one or more geographical locations.The one or more geographical locations may be stops along a route alongwhich the asset 840 travels. For example, the one or more geographicallocations may be stops along a route along which a bus will travel.

In one embodiment, the routing component 813 may receive location data911 that may indicate the live geographical location of the asset. Forexample, the routing component 813 may receive messages that indicatethe live GPS coordinates of the asset as the asset travels along theroute. The messages may be published by the asset via one or morechannels of a messaging system (e.g., via one or more of channels 821Athrough 821Z illustrated in FIG. 8), as discussed above. The routingcomponent 813 may also receive or obtain schedule data 912 for theasset. For example, the routing component 813 may access a data store ora database where the schedule data 912 for an asset is stored. Theschedule data 912 may indicate the route along which the asset willtravel. For example, the schedule data 912 may indicate the path of thevehicle along different roads and intersections where the asset willtravel. The schedule data 912 may indicate a plurality of stops alongwhich the asset may stop to pick up or drop off passengers. For example,the schedule data 912 may indicate bus stops or shuttle stops. Theschedule data 912 may also indicate hops between the stops. A hop may beone or more segments between the stops. For example, a hop may bebetween two different stop lights along a road.

In one embodiment, the routing component 813 may also receive or obtainshort term data 913 from multiple assets. For example, the routingcomponent 813 may receive short term data 913 from multiple busses orshuttles traveling along different routes in a geographical area. Theshort term data 913 may indicate the geographical locations of themultiple assets over a shorter period of time. For example, the shortterm data 913 may indicate the GPS coordinates of all of the assets in ageographical area for the past 30 minutes, hour, or some otherappropriate period of time. The routing component 813 may also receiveor obtain long term data 914 from multiple assets. For example, therouting component 813 may receive long term data 914 from multiplebusses or shuttles traveling along different routes in a geographicalarea. The long term data 914 may indicate the geographical locations ofthe multiple assets over longer periods of time. For example, the longterm data 914 may indicate the GPS coordinates of all of the assets in ageographical area for the past week, month, or some other appropriateperiod of time.

Assets, such as buses, often travel on predefined routes, and multipletransportation assets may service the same route to reduce the waittimes for passengers. An asset may synchronize its timing with otherassets that are travelling ahead of the asset or behind the asset alongthe route. This may allow the assets that are travelling along the sameroute to more evenly spread out their arrival times at different stops.In one embodiment, synchronizing the timing of the assets that aretravelling on a route may reduce the usefulness of the historical dataabout the delays of the assets. When the timing of the assets aresynchronized, it may be more useful to use the live geographicalpositions of the other assets that are travelling along the same routeto predict an estimated time of arrival. In addition, the predictedarrival times may be subject to high variance due to differing trafficpatterns along the route on different days. For example, traffic onFridays may start earlier because people may leave work earlier onFridays for the weekend. In another example, traffic around a sportsstadium may increase when there are games being played at the sportsstadium. Taking an average of the delays may not be as useful because ofthe variance in traffic patterns. However, if the delays of the assetsthat travel along a route are plotted in graph, where the amount ofdelay is on the Y-axis and the different stops or hops along the routeare on the X-axis, the general shape of the different delays may form apattern that may be used to predict estimated arrival times.Furthermore, the behavior of an asset may also change dynamically alonga route. For example, if a bus is behind schedule, the bus driver maydrive faster to get to the next stop on time. In another example, if abus is ahead of schedule, the bus driver may driver slower to preventthe bus from arriving at the next stop too early.

In one embodiment, the routing component 813 may generate a plurality ofmodels 921 that may be used to predict or estimate the time of arrivalfor an asset at one or more stops along a route. One example of a model921 may be referred to as an absolute delta model. The absolute deltamodule may use the delta (e.g., difference or change) in the averageabsolute historic delay for a current stop and a subsequent stop, andmay add that to the measured current delay to predict arrival times atfuture stops. Another example of a model 921 may be referred to as ahistory decay model. The history decay model may use the current delay(current_delay) and averages the current delay with the historicaldelays (historic_delay) at future stops using an exponentially weightedfunction of hop counts (hop_cnt). The weight (wt) may be determinedusing the following equation: wt=exp (−1.0*hop_cnt). The amount of delaymay be determined using the following equation:delay=historic_delay*(1−wt)+current_delay*wt. A further example of amodel 921 may be referred to as a difference delta model. The differencedelta model may calculate or determine historic median delay for allsubsequent stop segments. The historic median delay for all subsequentstop segments may be added to the current delay to make estimatedarrival times. Yet another example of a model 921 may referred to as alook ahead delta model. The look ahead delta model may identify otherassets (e.g., other busses) that have traveled through a subsequent stopor segment for a route and may record the difference in delays acrossthose stops or segments to the current delay. For stops or segments forwhich there are no other assets travelling ahead of the asset, theaverage historic difference delay may be used.

In one embodiment, the routing module 813 may attempt to identifysimilar trips of other assets along a route by looking at the shape ofthe delay curves, rather than matching the values of the delay curves.The delay curves may be normalized by a mean delay, and the routingmodule 813 may determine the cosine distance between the current andpast trips. A sliding window of time may be used, rather than usingdelay curves that start from the beginning of an asset's trip or route.The delay curve that most closely matches the current delay curve of theasset may be used to calculate a weighted average according to the levelof similarity to predict the arrival times at future stops. The currentdelay may be considered constant during an asset's trip along the route.This may help prevent inaccurate predictions in case the asset'sbehavior varies widely from its past behavior.

As discussed above, different models may work better in differentsituations to predict estimated arrival times of an asset. For example,a model may accurately predict arrival times for certain trips but maybe inaccurate for other trips. In one embodiment, the routing component813 may analyze the predicted arrival times of all of the differentmodels and may look at the errors or inaccuracies in the predictedarrival times from all of the different models. The routing component813 may look at a threshold number of past predictions and may selectthe model that was the most accurate during the last threshold number ofpast predictions. For example, the routing component 813 may select themodel that was the most accurate for the last five predicted arrivaltimes. This allows the routing module 813 to use a different model if acurrent model is unable to provide accurate predicted arrival times.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of an example method 1000 for predicting orestimating an arrival time for an asset at a geographical location.Method 1000 may be performed by processing logic that may comprisehardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic, aprocessor, a processing device, a central processing unit (CPU), asystem-on-chip (SoC), etc.), software (e.g., instructionsrunning/executing on a processing device), firmware (e.g., microcode),or a combination thereof. For example, the method can be implementedusing, for instance, a computing device, an asset management component(e.g., asset management component 810 illustrated in FIG. 8), a routingcomponent (e.g., routing component 813 illustrated in FIG. 8), anapplication, software components, etc. The method 1000 begins byreceiving one or more of location data, schedule data, short term data(e.g., a short term history of the geographical locations of differentassets), and long term data (e.g., a long term history of thegeographical locations of different assets) at block 1005, as discussedabove. The method 1000 may generate a plurality of models based on oneor more of the location data, the schedule data, the short term data,and the long term data (block 1010), as discussed above. The method 1000may select one of the pluralities of models to use for determining thepredicted arrival time of the asset (block 1015), as discussed above.For example, the method 1000 may select the model that was the mostaccurate over the last few predicted arrival times. The method 1000 maygenerate or determine a predicted arrival time based on the selectedmodel (block 1020), as discussed above.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI 1100 that may bepresented by an asset component (e.g., asset component 841 illustratedin FIG. 8). The GUI 1100 may be referred to as an operator GUI. Asdiscussed above, an asset (e.g., a shuttle, a bus, etc.) may receive amessage indicating a route that the asset should travel on to pick uppassengers. The asset component may present the GUI 1100 to an operatorof the asset to display the route for the asset. For example, the GUI1100 may be presented to a driver of a bus by an application executingon a smartphone or tablet computer. In other embodiments, the GUI 1100may include various other user interface elements such as text fields,search bars, buttons, radio buttons, drop down menus, lists, icons, textimages, graphics, text boxes or other user interface widgets.

The GUI 1100 includes a map 1105. The map 1105 may display ageographical area that includes the route 1110 along which the assetshould travel to pick up and drop off passengers. The currentgeographical location of the asset is displayed using the icon 1120(e.g., the triangle). The geographical locations of other assets withinthe geographical area are displayed using icons 1125. As illustrated inFIG. 11, the GUI 1100 indicates that ten passengers have requested aride from the asset.

As discussed above, the asset component may allow an operator tocommunicate with passengers, other operators, first responders, or usersof an organizational entity. For example, the asset component may joinone or more communication channels and may allow the operator tocommunicate with other operators in a manner similar to a two-way radioor the like. The button 1115 may allow the operator to communicate usingthe communication channel. For example, the user may press or tap thebutton 1115 when the user wishes to talk to other users, operators,etc., who are part of the communication channel.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of an example method 1200 for operating an assetcomponent. Method 1200 may be performed by processing logic that maycomprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic,a processor, a processing device, a central processing unit (CPU), asystem-on-chip (SoC), etc.), software (e.g., instructionsrunning/executing on a processing device), firmware (e.g., microcode),or a combination thereof. For example, the method can be implementedusing, for example, a computing device, an asset component (e.g., assetcomponent 841 illustrated in FIG. 8), an application, softwarecomponents, etc. The method 1200 begins by receiving a travel route(block 1205). For example, the method 1200 may receive a travel routefrom an asset management component (e.g., asset management component 810illustrated in FIG. 8). The travel route may indicate a route or pathalong which the asset should travel, as discussed above.

The method 1200 may present the travel route to an operator of an asset.For example, the method 1200 may present a map on a GUI (e.g., GUI 1100illustrated in FIG. 11) to a driver of a shuttle or bus. The map mayindicate the travel route to the driver of the bus, as discussed above.The method 1200 may determine the live geographical locations of theasset while the asset is travelling along the travel route. For example,the method 1200 may continually or periodically determine the GPScoordinates of the asset every second, every few seconds, etc., asdiscussed above. The method 1200 may continually publish messagesindicating the live geographical locations of the asset to one or morechannels of a messaging system (e.g., to one or more of channels 821Athrough 821Z illustrated in FIG. 8), as discussed above. This may allowthe asset management component, other operators, passengers, or otherusers to determine the live geographical location of the asset bysubscribing to the one or more channels, as discussed above.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI 1300 that may bepresented by a client component (e.g., client component 831 illustratedin FIG. 8). GUI 1300 may be referred to as a user GUI. As discussedabove, the client component may allow the user to request an asset totransport the user from a first geographical location to a secondgeographical location. The client component may present the GUI 1300 toa user of a client device. For example, the GUI 1300 may be presented toa passenger by an application executing on a smartphone or tabletcomputer. In other embodiments, the GUI 1300 may include various otheruser interface elements such as text fields, search bars, buttons, radiobuttons, drop down menus, lists, icons, text images, graphics, textboxes or other user interface widgets.

The GUI 1300 includes text fields 1305 and 1310. Text field 1305 mayallow a user to indicate the first geographical location (e.g., astarting location) and text field 1310 may allow the user to indicatethe second geographical location (e.g., a destination location). The GUI1300 also includes buttons 1325 through 1329. The buttons 1325 through1329 may allow the user to indicate the type(s) of asset(s) that theuser is willing to use to travel from the first geographical location tothe second geographical location. For example, button 1325 allows theuser to indicate that the user is willing to use a bus. Button 1326allows the user to indicate that the user is willing to use a shuttle.Button 1327 allows the user to indicate that the user is willing to usea ridesharing vehicle. Button 1328 allows the user to indicate that theuser is willing to use a taxi. Button 1329 allows the user to indicatethat the user is willing to use a helicopter. The user may select one ormore of the buttons 1325 through 1329 to specify the mode(s) oftransportation that the user is willing to use (e.g., to specify single-or multi-mode transportation). Additional or alternative buttons forother types or modes of transportation are possible.

The GUI 1300 also includes a map 1315. The map 1315 may display ageographical area that includes a recommended travel route 1320 for theuser. The travel route 1320 may also indicate the first geographicallocation (e.g., the starting location) and the second geographicallocation (e.g., the second geographical location). The GUI 1300 may alsoindicate other information about the asset and the recommended travelroute 1320 to the user. For example, the GUI 1300 may indicate that theuser should arrive at approximately 11:35 AM and the trip will takeapproximately 24 minute. The GUI 1300 may also indicate that the priceof the trip may range between $4.50 and $15.00.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI 1400 that may bepresented by a client component (e.g., client component 831 illustratedin FIG. 8). GUI 1400 may be referred to as a user GUI. As discussedabove, the client component may allow the user to request an asset totransport the user from a first geographical location to a secondgeographical location. The client component may present the GUI 1400 toa user of a client device. For example, the GUI 1400 may be presented toa passenger by an application executing on a smartphone or tabletcomputer. In other embodiments, the GUI 1400 may include various otheruser interface elements such as text fields, search bars, buttons, radiobuttons, drop down menus, lists, icons, text images, graphics, textboxes or other user interface widgets.

The GUI 1400 includes text fields 1405 and 1410. Text field 1405 mayallow a user to indicate the first geographical location (e.g., astarting location) and text field 1410 may allow the user to indicatethe second geographical location (e.g., a destination location). The GUI1400 also includes a list 1415. The list 1415 may indicate a list oftransportation assets that are available to transport the user form thefirst geographical location to the second geographical location. Forexample, the list 1415 may display a list of trains that are availableto transport the user from Palo Alto to San Carlos. The list 1415 alsoindicates information about the different assets that are available tothe user. For example, the list 1415 may indicate that train number 159(the next available train) will depart Palo Alto at approximately 3:47PM and arrive in San Carlos at approximately 4:01 PM and may indicatethat the train number 159 will take approximately 14 minutes to arrivein San Carlos. The list 1415 may also include previous trains for thesame route that have already left Palo Alto (e.g., train number 155 andtrain number 257), and their departure and arrival times. The previoustrains may be greyed out (or may be displayed in a different color) onthe list 1415.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart of an example method 1500 for operating a clientcomponent. Method 1500 may be performed by processing logic that maycomprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic,a processor, a processing device, a central processing unit (CPU), asystem-on-chip (SoC), etc.), software (e.g., instructionsrunning/executing on a processing device), firmware (e.g., microcode),or a combination thereof. For example, the method can be implementedusing, for example, a computing device, a client component (e.g., clientcomponent 831 illustrated in FIG. 8), an application, softwarecomponents, etc. The method 1500 begins by receiving a destinationlocation from a user (block 1505). For example, the user may enter in astarting location and a destination location using text fields in a GUI,such as GUI 1400 illustrated in FIG. 14 and as discussed above. Themethod 1500 may provide the destination location to an asset managementcomponent (e.g., asset management component 810 illustrated in FIG. 8)at block 1510. For example, the method 1500 may publish a messageindicating the starting location and the destination location to one ormore channels of a messaging system.

The method 1500 may receive a list of travel routes and may present thelist of travel routes to the user (block 1515). The list of travelroutes may include information such as the types of assets used for thetravel route, total estimated time for the travel route, estimatedarrival time, pricing information, etc., as discussed above. The method1500 may receive input from a user selecting one of the travel routesfrom the list of travel routes (block 1520). For example, the user maytap or select one travel route from the list of travel routes using theGUI. The method 1500 may initiate the trip and may display livegeographical to the user at block 1525. For example, the method 1500 mayrequest one or more assets to pick the user at the starting location toinitiate the trip. The method 1500 may also continually or periodicallydetermine the live geographical location of the user. The method 1500may display the live geographical location of the user on a map as theuser travels along the selected travel route.

FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI 1600 that may bepresented by a client component (e.g., client component 831 illustratedin FIG. 8) or an asset component (e.g., asset component 841 illustratedin FIG. 8). The GUI 1600 may be a user GUI or may be an operator GUI. Asdiscussed above, a client component or an asset component may allowusers or operators to report incidents or problems when using oroperating an asset. The client component or asset component may presentthe GUI 1600 to a user or an operator. For example, the GUI 1600 may bepresented to a passenger by an application executing on a smartphone ortablet computer. In other embodiments, the GUI 1600 may include variousother user interface elements such as text fields, search bars, buttons,radio buttons, drop down menus, lists, icons, text images, graphics,text boxes or other user interface widgets.

The GUI 1600 includes buttons 1605, 1610, 1615 and 1620. The buttons1605 through 1620 may allow the user to report different types ofproblems or incidents to an asset management component (e.g., assetmanagement component 810 illustrate in FIG. 8). For example, button 1605may allow an operator of an asset to report a flat tire and requestroadside help. In another example, button 1610 may allow a passenger toreport that the asset the passenger is using has been involved in atraffic accident. In a further example, button 1615 may allow anoperator to report an unruly or uncooperative passenger. In anotherexample, button 1620 may allow an operator of an asset to report that auser has had a medical emergency (e.g., a heart attack, seizure, etc.).Other additional or alternative buttons are possible.

FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI 1700 that may bepresented by an asset management component (e.g., asset managementcomponent 810 illustrated in FIG. 8). GUI 1700 may be referred to as anadministrator GUI. As discussed above, an asset management component maymanage or track various assets within a geographical area. The assetmanagement component may present the GUI 1700 to a user of anorganizational entity (e.g., an administrator, a manager, etc.) to allowthe user to view the live geographical locations of the various assetsand other information about the various assets. For example, the GUI1700 may be presented to user by an application (e.g., a web browser)executing on a smartphone, tablet computer, laptop computer, desktopcomputer, or the like. In other embodiments, the GUI 1700 may includevarious other user interface elements such as text fields, search bars,buttons, radio buttons, drop down menus, lists, icons, text images,graphics, text boxes or other user interface widgets.

The GUI 1700 includes a map 1705 of a geographical area. The map 1705includes various icons 1710 that may indicate the live geographicallocations of assets within the geographical area. The positions of theicons 1710 may change as the different assets travel along routes in thegeographical area. For example, the icon 1710 that represents a busnumbered 226 may move as the bus drives north along highway 9 on the map1705. The icons 1710 may update live, as discussed above. For example,the icons 1710 may be updated within a second, a few seconds, etc., ofthe movement of an asset.

FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI 1800 that may bepresented by an asset management component (e.g., asset managementcomponent 810 illustrated in FIG. 8). GUI 1800 may be referred to as anadministrator GUI. As discussed above, an asset management component maymanage or track various assets within a geographical area. The assetmanagement component may present the GUI 1800 to a user of anorganizational entity (e.g., an administrator, a manager, etc.) to allowthe user to view various information (e.g., performance metrics,occupancy, etc.) about the assets in a geographical area. For example,the GUI 1800 may be presented to user by an application (e.g., a webbrowser) executing on a smartphone, tablet computer, laptop computer,desktop computer, or the like. In other embodiments, the GUI 1800 mayinclude various other user interface elements such as text fields,search bars, buttons, radio buttons, drop down menus, lists, icons, textimages, graphics, text boxes or other user interface widgets.

The GUI 1800 includes information about assets, which may service aparticular route. For example, the GUI 1800 includes information abouttrains, which travel along the route WEST. For purposes of illustrationand not limitation, the GUI 1800 indicates that there are 17 trains,which travel on the route WEST. The GUI 1800 may also indicate theoccupancy rate for the trains, which is currently zero. The GUI 1800includes a list 1805, which may list the different stops that are on theroute WEST. The list 1805 includes information such as the name of thestop (e.g., “Henderson,” “Swanson,” etc.), an identifier for the nexttrain that will arrive at the stop (e.g., AM471, AM687, etc.), scheduledarrival times for the next train at a stop, and whether the trains areon time (e.g., OT).

FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating an example GUI 1900 that may bepresented by an asset management component (e.g., asset managementcomponent 810 illustrated in FIG. 8). GUI 1900 may be referred to as anadministrator GUI. As discussed above, an asset management component maymanage or track various assets within a geographical area. The assetmanagement component may present the GUI 1900 to a user of anorganizational entity (e.g., an administrator, a manager, etc.) to allowthe user to view information (e.g., performance metrics, occupancy,etc.) about the assets in a geographical area. For example, the GUI 1900may be presented to user by an application (e.g., a web browser)executing on a smartphone, tablet computer, laptop computer, desktopcomputer, or the like. In other embodiments, the GUI 1900 may includevarious other user interface elements such as text fields, search bars,buttons, radio buttons, drop down menus, lists, icons, text images,graphics, text boxes or other user interface widgets.

The GUI 1900 includes information about an asset selected by a user. Forexample, referring to FIG. 18, a user may select one or more assets froma list 1805. Alternatively, the user may select one or more icons 1710from the GUI 1700 illustrated in FIG. 17. The GUI 1900 may be presentedto the user to provide information about the selected asset(s). The GUI1900 may display asset information 1905, which may provide informationabout the selected asset. For example, the asset information 1905 mayindicate that the selected asset is a train with the identifier AM646.The asset information may also indicate the train's next stop, thetrain's current speed, the occupancy of the train, etc. The GUI 1900also includes a list 1910. The list 1910 may indicate the differentstops that the train has made and the scheduled time of arrival at eachof the stops. The list 910 may also indicate whether the train arrivedlate or on time at the stops. Any suitable information about theselected asset(s) may be displayed as the asset information 1905 and/orin the list 1910, depending on, for example, the type of asset that wasselected by the user.

FIG. 20 is a flowchart of an example method for operating an assetmanagement component. Method 2000 may be performed by processing logicthat may comprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic,programmable logic, a processor, a processing device, a centralprocessing unit (CPU), a system-on-chip (SoC), etc.), software (e.g.,instructions running/executing on a processing device), firmware (e.g.,microcode), or a combination thereof. For example, the method can beimplemented using, for example, a computing device, an asset managementcomponent (e.g., asset management component 810 illustrated in FIG. 8),sub-components of the asset management component (e.g., a monitoringcomponent, a routing component, etc.), an application, softwarecomponents, etc. The method 2000 begins by receiving one or more messageindicating live geographical locations of a plurality of assets (block2005). The messages may be published by the plurality of assets onto oneor more channels of a messaging system.

The method 2000 may display live geographical locations of the pluralityof assets (block 2010). For example, the method 2000 may display a GUIthat includes a map of a geographical area. The map may include iconsindicating the live geographical locations of the plurality of assets,as illustrated in FIG. 17. The method 2000 may receive a request from auser to travel to a destination (block 2015). For example, the method2000 may receive a message published by a user on a communicationchannel and the message may indicate the destination. The method 2000may determine one or more travel routes that allow the user to travel tothe specified destination (block 2020). The one or more travel routesmay use different assets, although some of the assets may be sharedbetween the one or more travel routes. The method 2000 publishes one ormore message indicating the one or more travel routes to the user (block2025).

FIG. 21 is a flowchart of an example method 2100 for processing oranalyzing video data. Method 2100 may be performed by processing logicthat may comprise hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic,programmable logic, a processor, a processing device, a centralprocessing unit (CPU), a system-on-chip (SoC), etc.), software (e.g.,instructions running/executing on a processing device), firmware (e.g.,microcode), or a combination thereof. For example, the method can beimplemented using, for example, a computing device, an asset managementcomponent (e.g., asset management component 810 illustrated in FIG. 8),a video component (e.g., video component 812 illustrated in FIG. 8), anapplication, software components, etc. The method 2100 begins byreceiving live video data from one or more assets (block 2105). Forexample, assets may include a video camera or other suitablevideo/camera source, and may publish messages that include live video toone or more channels of a messaging system, as discussed above.

The method 2100 may optionally process and analyze the video (block2110). For example, the method 2100 may count the number of cars thatappear in the live video data, as discussed above. In another example,the method 2100 may process the live video data to remove or blur thelicense plates from the cars that appear in the live video data. Themethod 2100 may provide the live video data to one or more users (block2115). For example, the method 2100 may republish the live video data toone or more channels of the messaging system to allow passengers andoperators of assets to view the live videos. The method 2100 mayoptionally provide the analysis of the live video data to one or moreusers (block 2120). For example, the method 2100 may indicate to usersthat traffic has been detected based on the analysis of the live videodata. In another example, the method 2100 may indicate to users that anaccident has been detected at a geographical location based on theanalysis of the live video data.

FIG. 22 is a diagram illustrating example authentication procedures foran asset management system. As discussed above, operators of assets,passengers or users of assets, and users of one or more organizationalentities may authenticate themselves with an asset management systembefore being allowed to use the asset management system. For example, apassenger may not be able to request an asset for a trip until thepassenger has been authenticated by the asset management system. Inanother example, an operator of an asset may not be allowed to receiverequests from passengers until the operator has been authenticated bythe asset management system. In a further example, a user of anorganizational entity may not be able to view the status and locationsof the assets in a geographical area unless the user of the organizationentity has been authenticated by the asset management system.

A passenger (e.g., a user of an asset) may authenticate himself orherself with the asset management system by providing authenticationcredentials to the authorization component 811 at block (C1). Thepassenger may also request a security token, which may be used by themessaging system 820 to grant the passenger access to different channelsin the messaging system 820. The passenger's security token may alsoallow the client component 831 to use the asset management component torequest different assets, pay for the usage of assets, etc. In block(C2), the client component 831 may provide the passenger's securitytoken to the messaging system 820 and may provide the geographicallocation of the passenger. The messaging system 820 may verify that thepassenger's security token is valid (e.g., has not expired) and maydetermine which channels of the messaging system 820 the passengershould have access to, based on, for example, the permissions of thesecurity token and based on the geographical location of the passenger.

An operator of an asset may authenticate himself or herself with theasset management system by providing authentication credentials to theauthorization component 811 at block (A1). The operator may also requesta security token, which may be used by the messaging system 820 to grantthe operator access to different channels in the messaging system 820.The operator's security token may also allow the asset component 841 touse the asset management component to receive requests for rides fromusers, to accept the requests, etc. In block (A2), the asset component841 may provide the operator's security token to the messaging system820 and may provide the geographical location of the operator. Themessaging system 820 may verify that the operator's security token isvalid and may determine which channels of the messaging system 820 theoperator should have access to, based on, for example, the permissionsof the security token and based on the geographical location of theoperator.

A user of an organizational entity may authenticate himself or herselfwith the asset management system by providing authentication credentialsto the authorization component 811 at block (OE1). The user of theorganizational entity may also request a security token, which may beused by the messaging system 820 to grant the user access to differentchannels in the messaging system 820. The user's security token may alsoallow the asset component 841 to use the asset management component tomonitor the live geographical locations, utilizations, statuses,conditions, etc., of assets in a geographical area. In block (OE2), theasset component 841 may provide the user's security token to themessaging system 820 and may provide the geographical location of theuser. The messaging system 820 may verify that the user's security tokenis valid and may determine which channels of the messaging system 820the user should have access to, based on, for example, the permissionsof the security token and based on the geographical location of theuser.

Embodiments of the subject matter and the operations described in thisspecification can be implemented in digital electronic circuitry, or incomputer software, firmware, or hardware, including the structuresdisclosed in this specification and their structural equivalents, or incombinations of one or more of them. Embodiments of the subject matterdescribed in this specification can be implemented as one or morecomputer programs, i.e., one or more modules of computer programinstructions, encoded on computer storage medium for execution by, or tocontrol the operation of, data processing apparatus. Alternatively or inaddition, the program instructions can be encoded on anartificially-generated propagated signal, e.g., a machine-generatedelectrical, optical, or electromagnetic signal, that is generated toencode information for transmission to suitable receiver apparatus forexecution by a data processing apparatus. A computer storage medium canbe, or be included in, a computer-readable storage device, acomputer-readable storage substrate, a random or serial access memoryarray or device, or a combination of one or more of them. Moreover,while a computer storage medium is not a propagated signal, a computerstorage medium can be a source or destination of computer programinstructions encoded in an artificially-generated propagated signal. Thecomputer storage medium can also be, or be included in, one or moreseparate physical components or media (e.g., multiple CDs, disks, orother storage devices).

The operations described in this specification can be implemented asoperations performed by a data processing apparatus on data stored onone or more computer-readable storage devices or received from othersources.

The term “data processing apparatus” encompasses all kinds of apparatus,devices, and machines for processing data, including by way of example aprogrammable processor, a computer processing device, a computer, asystem on a chip, or multiple ones, or combinations, of the foregoing. Acomputer processing device may include one or more processors which caninclude special purpose logic circuitry, e.g., an FPGA (fieldprogrammable gate array) or an ASIC (application-specific integratedcircuit), a central processing unit (CPU), a multi-core processor, etc.The apparatus can also include, in addition to hardware, code thatcreates an execution environment for the computer program in question,e.g., code that constitutes processor firmware, a protocol stack, adatabase management system, an operating system, a cross-platformruntime environment, a virtual machine, or a combination of one or moreof them. The apparatus and execution environment can realize variousdifferent computing model infrastructures, such as web services,distributed computing and grid computing infrastructures.

A computer program (also known as a program, software, softwareapplication, script, or code) can be written in any form of programminglanguage, including compiled or interpreted languages, declarative,procedural, or functional languages, and it can be deployed in any form,including as a stand-alone program or as a module, component,subroutine, object, or other unit suitable for use in a computingenvironment. A computer program may, but need not, correspond to a filein a file system. A program can be stored in a portion of a file thatholds other programs or data (e.g., one or more scripts stored in amarkup language resource), in a single file dedicated to the program inquestion, or in multiple coordinated files (e.g., files that store oneor more modules, sub-programs, or portions of code). A computer programcan be deployed to be executed on one computer or on multiple computersthat are located at one site or distributed across multiple sites andinterconnected by a communication network.

The processes and logic flows described in this specification can beperformed by one or more programmable processors executing one or morecomputer programs to perform actions by operating on input data andgenerating output. The processes and logic flows can also be performedby, and apparatus can also be implemented as, special purpose logiccircuitry, e.g., an FPGA (field programmable gate array) or an ASIC(application-specific integrated circuit).

Processors suitable for the execution of a computer program include, byway of example, both general and special purpose microprocessors, andany one or more processors of any kind of digital computer. Generally, aprocessor will receive instructions and data from a read-only memory ora random access memory or both. The essential elements of a computer area processor for performing actions in accordance with instructions andone or more memory devices for storing instructions and data. Generally,a computer will also include, or be operatively coupled to receive datafrom or transfer data to, or both, one or more mass storage devices forstoring data, e.g., magnetic disks, magneto-optical disks, opticaldisks, or solid state drives. However, a computer need not have suchdevices. Moreover, a computer can be embedded in another device, e.g., asmart phone, a mobile audio or video player, a game console, a GlobalPositioning System (GPS) receiver, or a portable storage device (e.g., auniversal serial bus (USB) flash drive), to name just a few. Devicessuitable for storing computer program instructions and data include allforms of non-volatile memory, media and memory devices, including, byway of example, semiconductor memory devices, e.g., EPROM, EEPROM, andflash memory devices; magnetic disks, e.g., internal hard disks orremovable disks; magneto-optical disks; and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks.The processor and the memory can be supplemented by, or incorporated in,special purpose logic circuitry.

To provide for interaction with a user, embodiments of the subjectmatter described in this specification can be implemented on a computerhaving a display device, e.g., a CRT (cathode ray tube) or LCD (liquidcrystal display) monitor, for displaying information to the user and akeyboard and a pointing device, e.g., a mouse, a trackball, a touchpad,or a stylus, by which the user can provide input to the computer. Otherkinds of devices can be used to provide for interaction with a user aswell; for example, feedback provided to the user can be any form ofsensory feedback, e.g., visual feedback, auditory feedback, or tactilefeedback; and input from the user can be received in any form, includingacoustic, speech, or tactile input. In addition, a computer can interactwith a user by sending resources to and receiving resources from adevice that is used by the user; for example, by sending web pages to aweb browser on a user's client device in response to requests receivedfrom the web browser.

Embodiments of the subject matter described in this specification can beimplemented in a computing system that includes a back-end component,e.g., as a data server, or that includes a middleware component, e.g.,an application server, or that includes a front-end component, e.g., aclient computer having a graphical user interface or a Web browserthrough which a user can interact with an implementation of the subjectmatter described in this specification, or any combination of one ormore such back-end, middleware, or front-end components. The componentsof the system can be interconnected by any form or medium of digitaldata communication, e.g., a communication network. Examples ofcommunication networks include a local area network (“LAN”) and a widearea network (“WAN”), an inter-network (e.g., the Internet), andpeer-to-peer networks (e.g., ad hoc peer-to-peer networks).

The computing system can include clients and servers. A client andserver are generally remote from each other and typically interactthrough a communication network. The relationship of client and serverarises by virtue of computer programs running on the respectivecomputers and having a client-server relationship to each other. In someembodiments, a server transmits data (e.g., an HTML page) to a clientdevice (e.g., for purposes of displaying data to and receiving userinput from a user interacting with the client device). Data generated atthe client device (e.g., a result of the user interaction) can bereceived from the client device at the server.

A system of one or more computers can be configured to performparticular operations or actions by virtue of having software, firmware,hardware, or a combination of them installed on the system that inoperation causes or cause the system to perform the actions. One or morecomputer programs can be configured to perform particular operations oractions by virtue of including instructions that, when executed by dataprocessing apparatus, cause the apparatus to perform the actions.

While this specification contains many specific implementation details,these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of anyinventions or of what may be claimed, but rather as descriptions offeatures specific to particular embodiments of particular inventions.Certain features that are described in this specification in the contextof separate embodiments can also be implemented in combination in asingle embodiment. Conversely, various features that are described inthe context of a single embodiment can also be implemented in multipleembodiments separately or in any suitable subcombination. Moreover,although features may be described above as acting in certaincombinations and even initially claimed as such, one or more featuresfrom a claimed combination can in some cases be excised from thecombination, and the claimed combination may be directed to asubcombination or variation of a subcombination.

Similarly, while operations are depicted in the drawings in a particularorder, this should not be understood as requiring that such operationsbe performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, orthat all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirableresults. In certain circumstances, multitasking and parallel processingmay be advantageous. Moreover, the separation of various systemcomponents in the embodiments described above should not be understoodas requiring such separation in all embodiments, and it should beunderstood that the described program components and systems cangenerally be integrated together in a single software product orpackaged into multiple software products.

Thus, particular embodiments of the subject matter have been described.Other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims. In somecases, the actions recited in the claims can be performed in a differentorder and still achieve desirable results. In addition, the processesdepicted in the accompanying figures do not necessarily require theparticular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirableresults. In certain implementations, multitasking and parallelprocessing may be advantageous.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: receiving one or more firstmessages from a plurality of assets on one or more first channels of aplurality of channels, wherein the one or more first messages indicatelive geographical locations of the plurality of assets located in ageographical area; displaying, via a graphical user interface, the livegeographical locations of the plurality of assets on a map of thegeographical area; receiving on a second channel a message from a firstuser device indicating a request to travel to a destination; determiningone or more travel routes to the destination, wherein the one or moretravel routes use different assets to travel to the destination; andpublishing on a third channel one or more second messages indicating theone or more travel routes.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:monitoring live user demand for each of the plurality of assets;identifying an increased demand from a plurality of users for one ormore first transportation assets located in a portion of thegeographical area; and re-allocating one or more second transportationassets located in the portion of the geographical area to meet theincreased demand from the users.
 3. The method of claim 2, furthercomprising: altering information for the one or more first and secondtransportation assets to incentive users to use the one or more secondtransportation assets instead of the one or more first transportationassets.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: displaying, via agraphical user interface, live performance metrics of each of theplurality of assets in the geographical area.
 5. The method of claim 1,further comprising: predicting live arrival times of each of theplurality of assets.
 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:displaying, via a graphical user interface, live predicted arrival timesof each of the plurality of assets.
 7. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving from the first user device on the second channel asecond message indicating a first travel route from the one or moretravel routes.
 8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:continuously tracking the first user device along the first travelroute; and recommending a second travel route to the first user devicein response to detecting a disruption in an upcoming portion of theassets used by the first travel route.
 9. The method of claim 1,comprising: predicting, in real time, arrival times of each of theplurality of assets.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein predicting thearrival times comprises: analyzing a history of previous trips taken byeach asset for a respective route over a predetermined time period togenerate a plurality of trip models for each asset for the respectiveroute; analyzing a current trip taken by each asset for the respectiveroute; and based thereon, selecting one of the plurality of trip models.11. An apparatus, comprising: one or more computer processors to:receive one or more first messages from a plurality of assets on one ormore first channels of a plurality of channels, wherein the one or morefirst messages indicate live geographical locations of the plurality ofassets located in a geographical area; display, via a graphical userinterface, the live geographical locations of the plurality of assets ona map of the geographical area; receive on a second channel a messagefrom a first user device indicating a request to travel to adestination; determine one or more travel routes to the destination,wherein the one or more travel routes use different assets to travel tothe destination; and publish on a third channel one or more secondmessages indicating the one or more travel routes.
 12. The apparatus ofclaim 11, wherein the one or more computer processors are further to:monitor live user demand for each of the plurality of assets; identifyan increased demand from a plurality of users for one or more firsttransportation assets located in a portion of the geographical area; andre-allocate one or more second transportation assets located in theportion of the geographical area to meet the increased demand from theusers.
 13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more computerprocessors are further to: alter information for the one or more firstand second transportation assets to incentive users to use the one ormore second transportation assets instead of the one or more firsttransportation assets.
 14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the one ormore computer processors are further to: predict live arrival times ofeach of the plurality of assets.
 15. The apparatus of claim 14, whereinthe one or more computer processors are further to: display, via agraphical user interface, live predicted arrival times of each of theplurality of assets.
 16. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the one ormore computer processors are further to: receive from the first userdevice on the second channel a second message indicating a first travelroute from the one or more travel routes.
 17. The apparatus of claim 16,wherein the one or more computer processors are further to: continuouslytrack the first user device along the first travel route; and recommenda second travel route to the first user device in response to detectinga disruption in an upcoming portion of the assets used by the firsttravel route.
 18. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the one or morecomputer processors are further to: predict, in real time, arrival timesof each of the plurality of assets.
 19. The apparatus of claim 18,wherein to predict the arrival times the one or more computer processorsare further to: analyze a history of previous trips taken by each assetfor a respective route over a predetermined time period to generate aplurality of trip models for each asset for the respective route;analyze a current trip taken by each asset for the respective route; andbased thereon, select one of the plurality of trip models.
 20. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium having instruction storedthereon that, when executed by one or more computer processors, causethe one or more computer processors to: receive one or more firstmessages from a plurality of assets on one or more first channels of aplurality of channels, wherein the one or more first messages indicatelive geographical locations of the plurality of assets located in ageographical area; display, via a graphical user interface, the livegeographical locations of the plurality of assets on a map of thegeographical area; receive on a second channel a message from a firstuser device indicating a request to travel to a destination; determineone or more travel routes to the destination, wherein the one or moretravel routes use different assets to travel to the destination; andpublish on a third channel one or more second messages indicating theone or more travel routes.